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﻿Title: Every Man in His Humour
Author: Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637
Language: English

*** Start of this Doctrine Publishing Corporation Digital Book "Every Man in His Humour" ***



By Ben Jonson


THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first
affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben
Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to
us almost unparalleled, at least in his age.

the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of
Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England.
month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and
child in poverty.  Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the
But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage.  His
attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at
Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations
of his classical learning.  Jonson always held Camden in
veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed,


and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His
university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted
William the Silent against the Spanish.  Jonson was a large and
bulky.  In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden,
prowess lost nothing in the telling.  Obviously Jonson was brave,

In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless.  Soon after he
married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare.
father whom he survived.  We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's
domestic life.

How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the
popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death
the year before.  Shakespeare already had the running to himself.
Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the
the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the
collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger
circumstances, had begun to receive recognition.  Francis Meres --
well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with
1599 to June 1602.

bricklayer."  The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson
in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual
remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious
squabble.  Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among
described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly

On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former
associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to
Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which
Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder.  A tradition of long
narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in
His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the
Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with
Shakespeare taking a part.  The evidence of this is contained in
name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well
first in the dramatis personae, that Shakespeare took that
particular part.  The order of a list of Elizabethan players was
generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in
the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of

Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time
Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was
claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded
classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had
already popularised on the stage.  Jonson never again produced so
fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other
for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio
Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least
characteristic of the comedies of Jonson.

little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to
follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his
he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with
Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when
we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time
definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English
in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent
ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit.  Jonson believed
that there was a professional way of doing things which might be
examples for the most part among the ancients.  To confine our
attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and
haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do
something different; and the first and most striking thing that he
evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours.


     "Some one peculiar quality
     Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
     All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,
     In their confluctions, all to run one way."

But continuing, Jonson is careful to add:

     "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather,
     A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot
     On his French garters, should affect a humour!
     O, it is more than most ridiculous."

Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage
placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict
braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a
But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of
character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on
a slavish adherence to classical conditions.  He says as to the
to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before
heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life,
merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in
which comedy long continued to run.  To mention only Shakespeare's
later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for
degrade the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of
in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled."

feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his
especially under criticism or satire.  "Every Man Out of His
contributed to what Dekker called the poetomachia or war of the
manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature,
couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that
righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true
comedy -- there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the
generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the
abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made
of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's
contemporaries.  The method of personal attack by actual caricature
Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and
dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency.  With the
arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in
soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with
his fellow-authors.  The circumstances of the origin of this
satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John
Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of
Jonson's.  On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been
(reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice,
and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be
ascertained with certainty.  Jonson's own statement of the matter

and in his edition of Jonson, 1906.

contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary
portrait of Jonson than a caricature.  As to the personages
was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described
prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of
whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold
with hard wax.  From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone
conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that
the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of
profane" Chester?

We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify
the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the
allusions in these forgotten quarrels.  We are on sounder ground of
fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity.  In "The
Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio
there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of
held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better
almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire
Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as
Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire
once more.  Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again
and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his
soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty.

have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is
admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly
this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of
Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom
make plays.  Another of these precocious little actors was
sweetest of his epitaphs.  An interesting sidelight is this on the
character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should
thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little
kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped
to the conning of their difficult parts.  To the caricature of
Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides
yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny
attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect.

avowed contribution to the fray.  According to the author's own
his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of
attack upon himself.  In this attempt to forestall his enemies
Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved
success.  While hardly more closely knit in structure than its
ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the
is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had
overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary.  In
detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson]
most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca.
blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most
complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a
walking dictionary of slang."

vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "an immodesty to his
held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged
hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by
arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of
recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's
friend, the poet Drayton.  Slight and hastily adapted as is
"Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought
appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to
the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in
of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither."

Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less
character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them
but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him
Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought
staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under
his direction as one of the leaders of that company.

The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised
new fields.  Plays on subjects derived from classical story and
Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius
years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only
following in the elder dramatist's footsteps.  But Jonson's idea of
Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the
stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and
dramatised with little taste or discrimination.  Shakespeare had a
ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise
his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a
classical antiquarian.  He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness,
his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in
genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste
the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical
overthrow.  Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking
representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's
There is no evidence to determine the matter.

In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and
Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward
Hoe."  In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his
Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar
scholarly ideals.  The two continued friends throughout life.
"Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in
passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to
influence at court.

With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and
successful career as a writer of masques.  He wrote more masques
than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary
variety and poetic excellence.  Jonson did not invent the masque;
court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of
elaboration long before his time.  But Jonson gave dramatic value
comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional
of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies
took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic
grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show.  On the mechanical and
scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo
standard of stage representation in the England of his day.  Jonson
continued active in the service of the court in the writing of
masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King
constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court.
will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and
in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary

represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness,
character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit
and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama.
dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy
wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from
the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore
virtuous character in the play.  Question has been raised as to
although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the
sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more
ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may
find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the
rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and
innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently
punishing them.

heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take
so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the
in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the
stupidity and wickedness of their victims.  We may object to the
honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is
approved in the end and rewarded.  The comedy is so admirably
written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike
distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with
structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full
of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree
in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal
Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary
loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in
period of nearly ten years.


"Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known
No country's mirth is better than our own."

Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for
collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the
converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to

In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards
caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing
generation.  A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben
knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate
exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even
to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality -- leaving the world
better for the art that they practised in it.

attempted by no dramatist before Jonson.  This volume published, in
a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned,
lyric and occasional verse and some ten "Masques" and
and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his
parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's "History of the
Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor.
not live to enjoy its perquisites.  Jonson was honoured with
degrees by both universities, though when and under what
circumstances is not known.  It has been said that he narrowly
escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day
averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand.

theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and
Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he
acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his
learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their
antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning.
his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically
plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their
Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the
speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words.  In
it effectively for his purposes.  The sophist Libanius suggests the
scene.  But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the
stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it
thenceforward to all time current and his own.

The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a
peculiar merit.  His theory demanded design and the perfection of
literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the
only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned.  And
is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and
formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and
disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual
is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where
rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the
spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical
charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the
mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the
unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom
falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet
showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others,
a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard.  There was
And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate
familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth
of the laureate.  In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity,
On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the
houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had
recommended him.  When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met
at Hawthornden.  Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were
critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first
matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and
stately age.

But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his
inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness
continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court.
its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in
"Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an
Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and
"The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad
humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable.  These, too, and
the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of
English literary Bohemia.  We hear of a room blazoned about with
company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly
attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions,

     "We such clusters had
     As made us nobly wild, not mad,
     And yet each verse of thine
     Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine."

though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet
None of these plays met with any marked success, although the
scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's
office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news
satire on the existing absurdities among newsmongers; although
bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile
Reconciled."  These last plays of the old dramatist revert to
caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more
than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon,
especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears
unworthily to have used his influence at court against the
bedridden for months.  He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as
fulfilling its duties.  King Charles befriended him, and even
commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court;
and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and
devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be
"sealed of the tribe of Ben."

the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The
and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called
"Underwoods", including some further entertainments; a translation
1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would
hardly have included himself.  These last comprise the fragment
and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic
of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now
commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which
their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy
translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted.  Many
passages of Jonson's "Discoveries" are literal translations from the
line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of
princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and
poets by recourse to Aristotle.  He finds a choice paragraph on
eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own
recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile
and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his
recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare.  To call such
passages -- which Jonson never intended for publication --
plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words.  To disparage
his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship.
or in the subtler graces of diction.

memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his
grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey:

"O rare Ben Jonson."






     Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601;
     The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609;
     Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600;
     Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601;
     Poetaster, 4to, 1602;
     Sejanus, 4to, 1605;
     Volpone, 4to, 1607;
     The Alchemist, 4to, 1612;
     Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611;
     The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631;
     The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631;
     A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640;
     Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640.

To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo,
and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and
in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher.


Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640;
Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692.
Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works.


The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of
Strangers, fol., 1640.

Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios.


     fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729;
     edited by P. Whalley, 7 volumes., 1756;
     in 9 volumes., 1875;
     by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838;
     by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by
     C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.;
     Nine Plays, 1904;
     Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal
     Library), 1885;
     Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905;


     J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay,
     (Canterbury Poets), 1886;
     Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895;
     Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901;
     Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905;
     No. 4, 1906;
     setting, Eragny Press, 1906.


     See Memoirs affixed to Works;
     J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886;
     Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden;
     Shakespeare Society, 1842;
     Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889.



    ([*footnote] This is the "Italian Edition" of the comedy.
    The later, superior, and more familiar Anglicised version,
    will be a separate Doctrine Publishing Corporation etext.)






   I have some business to employ him in.

   MUS.  I will, sir, presently.

   LOR. SE.  But hear you, sirrah;
   If he be at study disturb him not.

   MUS.  Very good, sir. [EXIT MUSCO.]

   LOR. SE.  How happy would I estimate myself,
   Could I by any means retire my son,
   From one vain course of study he affects!
   He is a scholar (if a man may trust
   The liberal voice of double-tongued report)
   Of dear account, in all our "Academies."
   Yet this position must not breed in me
   A fast opinion that he cannot err.
   Myself was once a "student," and indeed
   Fed with the self-same humour he is now,
   Dreaming on nought but idle "Poetry";
   But since, Experience hath awaked my spirits,
   And reason taught them, how to comprehend
   The sovereign use of study.  What, cousin Stephano!
   What news with you, that you are here so early?



   my cousin, uncle?

   stirring yet.



   keep it by.

   LOR. SE.  Oh, most ridiculous.

   do, I trow, I am no novice.

   Nay, never look at me, it's I that speak,
   Take't as you will, I'll not flatter you.
   What? have you not means enow to waste
   That which your friends have left you, but you must
   Go cast away your money on a Buzzard,
   And know not how to keep it when you have done?
   Oh, it's brave, this will make you a gentleman,
   look another way.

   STEP.  What would you have me do, trow?

   LOR.  What would I have you do? marry,
   Learn to be wise, and practise how to thrive,
   That I would have you do, and not to spend
   Your crowns on every one that humours you:
   I would not have you to intrude yourself
   In every gentleman's society,
   Till their affections or your own dessert,
   Do worthily invite you to the place.
   For he that's so respectless in his courses,
   Oft sells his reputation vile and cheap.
   Let not your carriage and behaviour taste
   Of affectation, lest while you pretend
   To make a blaze of gentry to the world
   A little puff of scorn extinguish it,
   And you be left like an unsavoury snuff,
   Whose property is only to offend.
   Cousin, lay by such superficial forms,
   And entertain a perfect real substance;
   Stand not so much on your gentility,
   But moderate your expenses (now at first)
   As you may keep the same proportion still:
   Bear a low sail.  Soft, who's this comes here?


   SER.  Gentlemen, God save you.

   living of mine own too beside.

   SER.  In good time, sir.


   SER.  Not I, sir.





   I can tell you.


   shame, I would --

   An you'll not be quiet, get you hence.
   You see, the gentleman contains himself
   In modest limits, giving no reply
   To your unseason'd rude comparatives;
   Yet you'll demean yourself without respect
   Either of duty or humanity.
   Thou hast a kinsman's interest in me.


   LOR. SE.  Yes, marry is it, sir.



   this letter.

   "To his dear and most selected friend, Signior Lorenzo di
   Nay, pray you be covered.

   SER.  Signior Prospero.

   Strozzi, is he not?

   merchant married his sister.



   MUS.  Sir.

   LOR. SE.  Make this gentleman drink here.
   I pray you go in, sir, an't please you.
   Now (without doubt) this letter's to my son.
   Be it but for the style's sake, and the phrase;
   Both which (I do presume) are excellent,
   And greatly varied from the vulgar form,
   If Prospero's invention gave them life.
   How now! what stuff is here?
   "Sir Lorenzo,
   Apollo hath got thee to be his Ingle, that thou comest
   together, scorning the world with their bare heels, and
   can shew thee two of the most perfect, rare and absolute
   'Sblood, invent some famous memorable lie, or other,
   to flap thy Father in the mouth withal: thou hast been
   Poet else: any scurvy roguish excuse will serve; say
   soul, for the general good all Florence delivers of him.
   Fool presently, and never hereafter be able to make a good
   and invention, than either the Hall-Beadle, or Poet
   Well, it is the strangest letter that ever I read.
   Is this the man, my son so oft hath praised
   To be the happiest, and most precious wit
   That ever was familiar with Art?
   Now, by our Lady's blessed son, I swear,
   I rather think him most unfortunate
   In the possession of such holy gifts,
   Being the master of so loose a spirit.
   Why, what unhallowed ruffian would have writ
   With so profane a pen unto his friend?
   The modest paper e'en looks pale for grief,
   To feel her virgin-cheek defiled and stained
   With such a black and criminal inscription.
   Well, I had thought my son could not have strayed
   So far from judgment as to mart himself
   Thus cheaply in the open trade of scorn
   To jeering folly and fantastic humour.
   But now I see opinion is a fool,
   And hath abused my senses. -- Musco.


   MUS. Sir.


   MUS.  Yes sir, a pretty while since.

   LOR. SE.  And where's Lorenzo?

   MUS.  In his chamber, sir.


   MUS.  No, sir, he saw him not.

   opened it.


   [EXIT MUS.]

   Nor will I practise any violent means
   To stay the hot and lusty course of youth.
   For youth restrained straight grows impatient,
   And, in condition, like an eager dog,
   Who, ne'er so little from his game withheld,
   Turns head and leaps up at his master's throat.
   Therefore I'll study, by some milder drift,
   To call my son unto a happier shrift.





   angry or pleased?



   to have it revealed.

   Lest thy protracted absence do lend light,
   To dark suspicion: Musco, be assured
   I'll not forget this thy respective love.

   even now?

   MUS.  Yes, sir, what of him?

   STEP.  Where is he, canst thou tell?

   MUS.  Why, he is gone.







   other way.

   MUS.  Nay, I pray you stand still, sir.


   fellow as he.


   your hose.


   having so good a leg as you have.

   leg would shew well in a silk hose.



   I have a little haste in, sir.

   STEP.  A thousand thanks, good Musco.



   old man's patience in the world.  My father read this with
   your swaggering Epistle here arrived in my father's hands at such

   have told mine uncle.


   glad you are well, cousin.


   you?  I protest --

   LOR. JU.  Nay, nay, you shall not protest

   my friend than I'll speak of at this time.

   LOR. JU.  You speak very well, sir.


   choice estimation; one whose lowest condition bears the stamp of a
   leaden constitution, coz, although perhaps a little inclining to
   Cousin, what think you of this?

   gentlemanlike than I have been, I do ensure you.

   Come, cousin.

   STEP.  I'll follow you.

   LOR. JU.  Follow me! you must go before!





   MAT.  I think this be the house: what ho!


   here, Cob?



   great, great, mighty great grandfather.

   MAT.  Why mighty? why mighty?


   MAT.  How knowest thou that?



   scholar, upsolve me that now.

   one Signior Bobadilla, where his lodging is?

   COB.  Oh, my guest, sir, you mean?

   MAT.  Thy guest, alas! ha, ha.


   thou'dst give it him.

   warrant he ne'er cast better in his life than he hath done

   MAT.  Why, was he drunk?


   Well, I'll tell him my mind.


   and wriggle into acquaintance with all the brave gallants about
   they flout him invincibly.  He useth every day to a merchant's
   mistress: and there he sits a whole afternoon sometimes,
   doth take this same filthy roguish tobacco, the finest and



   BOB.  Hostess, hostess.

   TIB.  What say you, sir?

   BOB.  A cup of your small beer, sweet hostess.



   TIB.  My husband told him you were, sir.

   BOB.  What a plague! what meant he?

   MAT.  Signior Bobadilla.



   house here.

   MAT.  God save you, sir, God save you.





   MAT.  Vouchsafe me by whom, good Signior.

   here for this gentleman.

   MAT.  No haste, sir, it is very well.

   passes the day abroad, sir? you can tell.

   exceeding fine lodging here, very neat, and private.

   possess no gentlemen of your acquaintance with notice of my

   MAT.  Who?  I, sir? no.

   not be so popular and general as some be.

   MAT.  True, Signior, I conceive you.

   to some peculiar and choice spirits, to whom I am extraordinarily

   MAT.  O Lord, sir!  I resolve so.



   shallow, pitiful fellows that live upon the face of the earth

   Ha, how do you like it?

   BOB.  'Tis good.

   The most refined essence heaven covers,
   Send I these lines, wherein I do commence
   The happy state of true deserving lovers.
   If they prove rough, unpolish'd, harsh, and rude,
   Haste made that waste; thus mildly I conclude."


   passing well, sir, methinks.

   BOB.  So, so, it's a fashion gentlemen use.

   Prospero's elder brother and I are fallen out exceedingly: this
   beautiful and gentlemanlike; yet he condemned it for the most
   pied and ridiculous that ever he saw.


   MAT.  Ay, sir, he.

   good commodity for a smith to make hob-nails on.



   more grace.

   when, when said he so?

   mine, told me so.


   heard, sir.

   BOB.  Of whom? of whom, I pray?

   rare skill, sir.

   a more sweet comely gentlemanlike guard; so indifferent.  Hollow
   your point most vilely.

   MAT.  How is the bearing of it now, sir?

   upon you at pleasure.

   MAT.  How mean you pass upon me?

   desperate thrust, believe it.

   MAT.  Well, come, sir.

   dearth of judgment makes you seem tedious.

   MAT.  But one venue, sir.

   you, sir?


   we'll call up Signior Prospero; perhaps we shall meet with
   Coridon his brother there.





   PIS.  Within, sir, in the warehouse.

   see the delivery of those wares to Signior Bentivole: I'll be
   there myself at the receipt of the money anon.

   PIS.  Very good, sir.


   THO.  Brother, did you see that same fellow there?

   GIU.  Ay, what of him?

   need were.

   to tell me, what is't?

   As fearing to abuse your patience,
   But that I know your judgment more direct,
   Able to sway the nearest of affection.

   GIU.  Come, come, what needs this circumstance?

   THO.  I will not say what honour I ascribe
   Unto your friendship, nor in what dear state
   I hold your love; let my continued zeal,
   The constant and religious regard,
   That I have ever carried to your name,
   My carriage with your sister, all contest,
   How much I stand affected to your house.

   the matter.

   THO.  Then (without further ceremony) thus.
   My brother Prospero (I know not how)
   Of late is much declined from what he was,
   And greatly alter'd in his disposition.
   When he came first to lodge here in my house,
   Ne'er trust me, if I was not proud of him:
   Methought he bare himself with such observance,
   So true election and so fair a form:
   But all he did became him as his own,
   And seem'd as perfect, proper, and innate,
   Unto the mind, as colour to the blood,
   But now, his course is so irregular,
   So loose affected, and deprived of grace,
   And he himself withal so far fallen off
   From his first place, that scarce no note remains,
   To tell men's judgments where he lately stood;
   He's grown a stranger to all due respect,
   Forgetful of his friends, and not content
   To stale himself in all societies,
   He makes my house as common as a Mart,
   A Theatre, a public receptacle
   For giddy humour, and diseased riot,
   He, and his wild associates, spend their hours,
   In repetition of lascivious jests,
   Control my servants: and indeed what not?

   a penny more of me, I'll give him this ear.

   THO.  Nay, good brother, have patience.


   THO.  O, there are divers reasons to dissuade me,
   But would yourself vouchsafe to travail in it,
   (Though but with plain and easy circumstance,)
   It would both come much better to his sense,
   And savour less of grief and discontent.
   You are his elder brother, and that title
   Confirms and warrants your authority:
   Which (seconded by your aspect) will breed
   A kind of duty in him, and regard.
   Whereas, if I should intimate the least,
   It would but add contempt to his neglect,
   Heap worse on ill, rear a huge pile of hate,
   That in the building would come tottering down,
   And in her ruins bury all our love.
   He would be ready in the heat of passion,
   To fill the ears of his familiars,
   With oft reporting to them, what disgrace
   And gross disparagement I had proposed him.
   And then would they straight back him in opinion,
   Make some loose comment upon every word,
   And out of their distracted phantasies,
   Contrive some slander, that should dwell with me.
   They would give out, (because my wife is fair,
   Myself but lately married, and my sister
   Here sojourning a virgin in my house,)
   That I were jealous: nay, as sure as death,
   Thus they would say: and how that I had wrong'd
   My brother purposely, thereby to find
   An apt pretext to banish them my house.

   GIU.  Mass, perhaps so.

   (Like one of these penurious quack-salvers)
   But try experiments upon myself,
   Open the gates unto mine own disgrace,
   Lend bare-ribb'd envy opportunity
   To stab my reputation, and good name.


   MAT.  I will speak to him.

   gentlemen: is Signior Prospero stirring?

   GIU.  How then? what should he do?

   BOB.  Signior Thorello, is he within, sir?


   GIU.  Why, do you hear? you.


   GIU.  How, Scavenger? stay, sir, stay.


   THO.  Nay, brother Giuliano.


   Good faith, you shall not.



   an I live, i'faith.

   THO.  But, brother, let your apprehension (then)
   Run in an easy current, not transported
   With heady rashness, or devouring choler,
   And rather carry a persuading spirit,
   Whose powers will pierce more gently; and allure
   Th' imperfect thoughts you labour to reclaim,
   To a more sudden and resolved assent.



   I'll but give order to my servants for the dispatch of some
   business, and come to you presently.
   For coming so late this morning.

   by the belly for walking so late in the evening.


   Though not reposed in that security
   As I could wish; well, I must be content,
   Howe'er I set a face on't to the world,
   Would I had lost this finger at a vent,
   So Prospero had ne'er lodged in my house,
   Why't cannot be, where there is such resort
   Of wanton gallants, and young revellers,
   That any woman should be honest long.
   Is't like, that factious beauty will preserve
   The sovereign state of chastity unscarr'd,
   When such strong motives muster, and make head
   Against her single peace? no, no: beware
   When mutual pleasure sways the appetite,
   And spirits of one kind and quality,
   Do meet to parley in the pride of blood.
   Had answer'd their affections, all the world
   Should not persuade me, but I were a cuckold:
   Marry, I hope they have not got that start.
   For opportunity hath balk'd them yet,
   And shall do still, while I have eyes and ears
   To attend the imposition of my heart:
   My presence shall be as an iron bar,
   'Twixt the conspiring motions of desire,
   Yea, every look or glance mine eye objects,
   Shall check occasion, as one doth his slave,
   When he forgets the limits of prescription.



   THO.  An she have overheard me now?





   THO.  Troth, my head aches extremely on a sudden.

   BIA.  Oh Jesu!

   THO.  How now! what!


   THO.  How simple, and how subtle are her answers!
   A new disease, and many troubled with it.
   Why true, she heard me all the world to nothing.

   harm, in troth.


   BIA.  Pray God it do.


   But it may well be call'd poor mortals' Plague;
   For like a pestilence it doth infect
   The houses of the brain: first it begins
   Solely to work upon the phantasy,
   Filling her seat with such pestiferous air,
   As soon corrupts the judgment, and from thence,
   Sends like contagion to the memory,
   Still each of other catching the infection,
   Which as a searching vapour spreads itself
   Confusedly through every sensive part,
   Till not a thought or motion in the mind
   Be free from the black poison of suspect.
   Ah, but what error is it to know this,
   And want the free election of the soul
   In such extremes! well, I will once more strive
   (Even in despite of hell) myself to be,
   And shake this fever off that thus shakes me.





   MUS.  'Sblood, I cannot choose but laugh to see myself translated
   thus, from a poor creature to a creator; for now must I create an
   intolerable sort of lies, or else my profession loses his grace,
   and yet the lie to a man of my coat is as ominous as the Fico, oh,
   sir, it holds for good policy to have that outwardly in vilest
   estimation, that inwardly is most dear to us: So much for my
   borrowed shape.  Well, the troth is, my master intends to follow
   his son dry-foot to Florence, this morning: now I, knowing of this
   conspiracy, and the rather to insinuate with my young master, (for
   so must we that are blue waiters, or men of service do, or else
   perhaps we may wear motley at the year's end, and who wears motley
   you know:) I have got me afore in this disguise, determining here
   to lie in ambuscado, and intercept him in the midway; if I can but
   get his cloak, his purse, his hat, nay, any thing so I can stay his
   journey, Rex Regum, I am made for ever, i'faith: well, now must
   I practise to get the true garb of one of these Lance-knights; my
   arm here, and my -- God's so, young master and his cousin.

   LOR. JU.  So, sir, and how then?


   STEP.  God's foot, I have lost my purse, I think.

   LOR. JU.  How? lost your purse? where? when had you it?

   STEP.  I cannot tell, stay.

   MUS.  'Slid, I am afraid they will know me, would I could get by

   LOR. JU.  What! have you it?

   STEP.  No, I think I was bewitched, I.

   LOR. JU.  Nay, do not weep, a pox on it, hang it, let it go.

   STEP.  Oh, it's here; nay, an it had been lost, I had not cared but
   for a jet ring Marina sent me.

   LOR. JU.  A jet ring! oh, the poesie, the poesie!

   STEP.  Fine, i'faith: "Though fancy sleep, my love is deep":
   meaning that though I did not fancy her, yet she loved me dearly.

   LOR. JU.  Most excellent.

   STEP.  And then I sent her another, and my poesie was:
   "The deeper the sweeter, I'll be judged by Saint Peter."

   LOR. JU.  How, by St. Peter?  I do not conceive that.

   STEP.  Marry, St. Peter to make up the metre.

   LOR JU.  Well, you are beholding to that Saint, he help'd you at
   your need; thank him, thank him.

   MUS.  I will venture, come what will: Gentlemen, please you change
   a few crowns for a very excellent good blade here; I am a poor
   gentleman, a soldier, one that (in the better state of my fortunes)
   scorned so mean a refuge, but now it's the humour of necessity to
   have it so: you seem to be, gentlemen, well affected to martial
   men, else I should rather die with silence, than live with shame:
   howe'er, vouchsafe to remember it is my want speaks, not myself:
   this condition agrees not with my spirit.

   LOR. JU.  Where hast thou served?

   MUS.  May it please you, Signior, in all the provinces of Bohemia,
   Hungaria, Dalmatia, Poland, where not?  I have been a poor servitor
   by sea and land, any time this xiiij. years, and follow'd the
   fortunes of the best Commanders in Christendom.  I was twice shot
   at the taking of Aleppo, once at the relief of Vienna; I have been
   at America in the galleys thrice, where I was most dangerously shot
   in the head, through both the thighs, and yet, being thus maim'd,
   I am void of maintenance, nothing left me but my scars, the noted
   marks of my resolution.

   STEP.  How will you sell this rapier, friend?

   MUS.  Faith, Signior, I refer it to your own judgment; you are a
   gentleman, give me what you please.

   STEP.  True, I am a gentleman, I know that; but what though, I pray
   you say, what would you ask?

   MUS.  I assure you the blade may become the side of the best prince
   in Europe.

   LOR. JU.  Ay, with a velvet scabbard.

   STEP.  Nay, an't be mine it shall have a velvet scabbard, that is
   flat, I'd not wear it as 'tis an you would give me an angel.

   MUS.  At your pleasure, Signior, nay, it's a most pure Toledo.

   STEP.  I had rather it were a Spaniard: but tell me, what shall I
   give you for it? an it had a silver hilt --

   LOR. JU.  Come, come, you shall not buy it; hold, there's a
   shilling, friend, take thy rapier.

   STEP.  Why, but I will buy it now, because you say so: what, shall
   I go without a rapier?

   LOR. JU.  You may buy one in the city.

   STEP.  Tut, I'll buy this, so I will; tell me your lowest price.

   LOR. JU.  You shall not, I say.

   STEP.  By God's lid, but I will, though I give more than 'tis

   LOR. JU.  Come away, you are a fool.

   STEP.  Friend, I'll have it for that word: follow me.

   MUS.  At your service, Signior.




   LOR. SE.  My labouring spirit being late opprest
   With my son's folly, can embrace no rest
   Till it hath plotted by advice and skill,
   How to reduce him from affected will
   To reason's manage; which while I intend,
   My troubled soul begins to apprehend
   A farther secret, and to meditate
   Upon the difference of man's estate:
   Where is decipher'd to true judgment's eye
   A deep, conceal'd, and precious mystery.
   Yet can I not but worthily admire
   At nature's art: who (when she did inspire
   This heat of life) placed Reason (as a king)
   Here in the head, to have the marshalling
   Of our affections: and with sovereignty
   To sway the state of our weak empery.
   But as in divers commonwealths we see,
   The form of government to disagree:
   Even so in man, who searcheth soon shall find
   As much or more variety of mind.
   Some men's affections like a sullen wife,
   Is with her husband reason still at strife.
   Others (like proud arch-traitors that rebel
   Against their sovereign) practise to expel
   Their liege Lord Reason, and not shame to tread
   Upon his holy and anointed head.
   But as that land or nation best doth thrive,
   Which to smooth-fronted peace is most proclive,
   So doth that mind, whose fair affections ranged
   By reason's rules, stand constant and unchanged,
   Else, if the power of reason be not such,
   Why do we attribute to him so much?
   Or why are we obsequious to his law,
   If he want spirit our affects to awe?
   Oh no, I argue weakly, he is strong,
   Albeit my son have done him too much wrong.


   MUS.  My master: nay, faith, have at you: I am flesh'd now
   I have sped so well: Gentleman, I beseech you respect the
   estate of a poor soldier; I am ashamed of this base course of
   life, (God's my comfort) but extremity provokes me to't; what

   LOR. SE.  I have not for you now.

   MUS.  By the faith I bear unto God, gentleman, it is no ordinary
   custom, but only to preserve manhood.  I protest to you, a man I
   have been, a man I may be, by your sweet bounty.

   LOR. SE.  I pray thee, good friend, be satisfied.

   MUS.  Good Signior: by Jesu, you may do the part of a kind
   gentleman, in lending a poor soldier the price of two cans of beer,
   a matter of small value, the King of heaven shall pay you, and I
   shall rest thankful: sweet Signior --

   LOR. SE.  Nay, an you be so importunate --

   MUS.  O Lord, sir, need will have his course: I was not made to
   this vile use; well, the edge of the enemy could not have abated me
   so much: it's hard when a man hath served in his Prince's cause
   and be thus.  Signior, let me derive a small piece of silver from
   you, it shall not be given in the course of time, by this good
   ground, I was fain to pawn my rapier last night for a poor supper,
   I am a Pagan else: sweet Signior --

   LOR. SE.  Believe me, I am rapt with admiration,
   To think a man of thy exterior presence
   Should (in the constitution of the mind)
   Be so degenerate, infirm, and base.
   Art thou a man? and sham'st thou not to beg?
   To practise such a servile kind of life?
   Why, were thy education ne'er so mean,
   Having thy limbs: a thousand fairer courses
   Offer themselves to thy election.
   Nay, there the wars might still supply thy wants,
   Or service of some virtuous gentleman,
   Or honest labour; nay, what can I name,
   But would become thee better than to beg?
   But men of your condition feed on sloth,
   As doth the Scarab on the dung she breeds in,
   Not caring how the temper of your spirits
   Is eaten with the rust of idleness.
   Now, afore God, whate'er he be that should
   Relieve a person of thy quality,
   While you insist in this loose desperate course,
   I would esteem the sin not thine, but his.

   MUS.  Faith, Signior, I would gladly find some other course,
   if so.

   LOR. SE.  Ay, you'd gladly find it, but you will not seek it.

   MUS.  Alas, sir, where should a man seek? in the wars, there's
   no ascent by desert in these days, but -- and for service,
   would it were as soon purchased as wish'd for, (God's my
   comfort) I know what I would say.

   LOR. SE.  What's thy name?

   MUS.  Please you: Portensio.

   LOR. SE.  Portensio?
   Say that a man should entertain thee now,
   Would thou be honest, humble, just, and true?

   MUS.  Signior: by the place and honour of a soldier --

   LOR. SE.  Nay, nay, I like not these affected oaths;
   Speak plainly, man: what thinkst thou of my words?

   MUS.  Nothing, Signior, but wish my fortunes were as happy as
   my service should be honest.

   LOR. SE.  Well, follow me, I'll prove thee, if thy deeds
   Will carry a proportion to thy words.

   [EXIT LOR. SE.]

   MUS.  Yes, sir, straight, I'll but garter my hose; oh, that
   my belly were hoop'd now, for I am ready to burst with
   laughing.  'Slid, was there ever seen a fox in years to
   betray himself thus? now shall I be possest of all his
   determinations, and consequently my young master; well, he
   is resolved to prove my honesty: faith, and I am resolved
   to prove his patience: oh, I shall abuse him intolerably:
   this small piece of service will bring him clean out of
   love with the soldier for ever.  It's no matter, let the
   world think me a bad counterfeit, if I cannot give him the
   slip at an instant; why, this is better than to have stayed
   his journey by half: well, I'll follow him.  Oh, how I long
   to be employed.




   MAT.  Yes, faith, sir, we were at your lodging to seek
   you too.

   PROS.  Oh, I came not there to-night.

   BOB.  Your brother delivered us as much.

   PROS.  Who, Giuliano?

   BOB.  Giuliano.  Signior Prospero, I know not in what kind
   you value me, but let me tell you this: as sure as God, I
   do hold it so much out of mine honour and reputation, if I
   should but cast the least regard upon such a dunghill of
   flesh; I protest to you (as I have a soul to be saved) I
   ne'er saw any gentlemanlike part in him: an there were no
   more men living upon the face of the earth, I should not
   fancy him, by Phoebus.

   MAT.  Troth, nor I, he is of a rustical cut, I know not how:
   he doth not carry himself like a gentleman.

   PROS.  Oh, Signior Matheo, that's a grace peculiar but to a
   few; "quos aequus amavit Jupiter."

   MAT.  I understand you, sir.


   PROS.  No question you do, sir: Lorenzo! now on my soul,
   welcome; how dost thou, sweet rascal? my Genius!  'Sblood,
   I shall love Apollo and the mad Thespian girls the better
   while I live for this; my dear villain, now I see there's
   some spirit in thee: Sirrah, these be they two I writ to
   thee of, nay, what a drowsy humour is this now? why dost
   thou not speak?

   LOR. JU.  Oh, you are a fine gallant, you sent me a rare

   PROS.  Why, was't not rare?

   LOR. JU.  Yes, I'll be sworn I was ne'er guilty of reading
   the like, match it in all Pliny's familiar Epistles, and
   I'll have my judgment burn'd in the ear for a rogue, make
   much of thy vein, for it is inimitable.  But I marle what
   camel it was, that had the carriage of it? for doubtless
   he was no ordinary beast that brought it.

   PROS.  Why?

   LOR. JU.  Why, sayest thou? why, dost thou think that any
   reasonable creature, especially in the morning, (the sober
   time of the day too) would have ta'en my father for me?

   PROS.  'Sblood, you jest, I hope?

   LOR. JU.  Indeed, the best use we can turn it to, is
   to make a jest on't now: but I'll assure you, my father
   had the proving of your copy some hour before I saw it.

   PROS.  What a dull slave was this!  But, sirrah, what
   said he to it, i'faith?

   LOR. JU.  Nay, I know not what he said.  But I have a
   shrewd guess what he thought.

   PRO.  What? what?

   LOR. JU.  Marry, that thou are a damn'd dissolute villain,
   And I some grain or two better, in keeping thee company.

   PROS.  Tut, that thought is like the moon in the last
   quarter, 'twill change shortly: but, sirrah, I pray thee
   be acquainted with my two Zanies here, thou wilt take
   exceeding pleasure in them if thou hear'st them once, but
   what strange piece of silence is this? the sign of the
   dumb man?

   LOR. JU.  Oh, sir, a kinsman of mine, one that may
   make our music the fuller, an he please, he hath his
   humour, sir.

   PROS.  Oh, what is't? what is't?

   LOR. JU.  Nay, I'll neither do thy judgment nor his
   folly that wrong, as to prepare thy apprehension: I'll
   leave him to the mercy of the time, if you can take him:

   PROS.  Well, Signior Bobadilla, Signior Matheo: I pray
   you know this gentleman here, he is a friend of mine, and
   one that will well deserve your affection, I know not
   your name, Signior, but I shall be glad of any good
   occasion to be more familiar with you.

   STEP.  My name is Signior Stephano, sir, I am this
   gentleman's cousin, sir, his father is mine uncle; sir,
   I am somewhat melancholy, but you shall command me, sir,
   in whatsoever is incident to a gentleman.

   BOB.  Signior, I must tell you this, I am no general
   man, embrace it as a most high favour, for (by the
   host of Egypt) but that I conceive you to be a gentleman
   of some parts, I love few words: you have wit: imagine.

   STEP.  Ay, truly, sir, I am mightily given to melancholy.

   MAT.  O Lord, sir, it's your only best humour, sir,
   your true melancholy breeds your perfect fine wit, sir:
   no more but take your pen and paper presently, and write
   you your half score or your dozen of sonnets at a sitting.

   LOR. JU.  Mass, then he utters them by the gross.

   STEP.  Truly, sir, and I love such things out of measure.

   LOR. JU.  I'faith, as well as in measure.

   MAT.  Why, I pray you, Signior, make use of my study,
   it's at your service.

   STEP.  I thank you, sir, I shall be bold, I warrant
   you, have you a close stool there?

   MAT.  Faith, sir, I have some papers there, toys of
   mine own doing at idle hours, that you'll say there's
   some sparks of wit in them, when you shall see them.

   PROS.  Would they were kindled once, and a good fire
   made, I might see self-love burn'd for her heresy.

   STEP.  Cousin, is it well? am I melancholy enough?

   LOR. JU.  Oh, ay, excellent.

   PROS.  Signior Bobadilla, why muse you so?

   LOR. JU.  He is melancholy too.

   BOB.  Faith, sir, I was thinking of a most honourable
   piece of service was perform'd to-morrow, being St.
   Mark's day, shall be some ten years.

   LOR. JU.  In what place was that service, I pray you,

   BOB.  Why, at the beleaguering of Ghibelletto, where,
   in less than two hours, seven hundred resolute gentlemen,
   as any were in Europe, lost their lives upon the breach:
   I'll tell you, gentlemen, it was the first, but the best
   leaguer that ever I beheld with these eyes, except the
   taking in of Tortosa last year by the Genoways, but that
   (of all other) was the most fatal and dangerous exploit
   that ever I was ranged in, since I first bore arms before
   the face of the enemy, as I am a gentleman and a soldier.

   STEP.  So, I had as lief as an angel I could swear as
   well as that gentleman.

   LOR. JU.  Then you were a servitor at both, it seems.

   BOB.  O Lord, sir: by Phaeton, I was the first man that
   entered the breach, and had I not effected it with
   resolution, I had been slain if I had had a million of

   LOR. JU.  Indeed, sir?

   STEP.  Nay, an you heard him discourse you would
   say so: how like you him?

   BOB.  I assure you (upon my salvation) 'tis true,
   and yourself shall confess.

   PROS.  You must bring him to the rack first.

   BOB.  Observe me judicially, sweet Signior: they had
   planted me a demi-culverin just in the mouth of the
   breach; now, sir, (as we were to ascend), their master
   gunner (a man of no mean skill and courage, you must
   think,) confronts me with his linstock ready to give
   fire; I spying his intendment, discharged my petronel
   in his bosom, and with this instrument, my poor rapier,
   ran violently upon the Moors that guarded the ordnance,
   and put them pell-mell to the sword.

   PROS.  To the sword? to the rapier, Signior.

   LOR. JU.  Oh, it was a good figure observed, sir: but
   did you all this, Signior, without hurting your blade?

   BOB.  Without any impeach on the earth: you shall
   perceive, sir, it is the most fortunate weapon that
   ever rid on a poor gentleman's thigh: shall I tell you,
   sir? you talk of Morglay, Excalibur, Durindana, or so:
   tut, I lend no credit to that is reported of them, I
   know the virtue of mine own, and therefore I dare the
   boldlier maintain it.

   STEP.  I marle whether it be a Toledo or no?

   BOB.  A most perfect Toledo, I assure you, Signior.

   STEP.  I have a countryman of his here.

   MAT.  Pray you let's see, sir: yes, faith, it is.

   BOB.  This a Toledo? pish!

   STEP.  Why do you pish, Signior?

   BOB.  A Fleming, by Phoebus!  I'll buy them for a
   guilder a piece, an I'll have a thousand of them.

   LOR. JU.  How say you, cousin? I told you thus much.

   PROS.  Where bought you it, Signior?

   STEP.  Of a scurvy rogue soldier, a pox of God on
   him, he swore it was a Toledo.

   BOB.  A provant rapier, no better.

   MAT.  Mass, I think it be indeed.

   LOR. JU.  Tut, now it's too late to look on it, put it
   up, put it up.

   STEP.  Well, I will not put it up, but by God's foot,
   an ever I meet him --

   PROS.  Oh, it is past remedy now, sir, you must have

   STEP.  Whoreson, coney-catching rascal; oh, I could
   eat the very hilts for anger.

   LOR. JU.  A sign you have a good ostrich stomach, cousin.

   STEP.  A stomach? would I had him here, you should see
   an I had a stomach.

   PROS.  It's better as 'tis: come, gentlemen, shall we go?

   LOR. JU.  A miracle, cousin, look here, look here.


   STEP.  Oh, God's lid, by your leave, do you know me, sir?

   MUS.  Ay, sir, I know you by sight.

   STEP.  You sold me a rapier, did you not?

   MUS.  Yes, marry did I, sir.

   STEP.  You said it was a Toledo, ha?

   MUS.  True, I did so.

   STEP.  But it is none.

   MUS.  No, sir, I confess it, it is none.

   STEP.  Gentlemen, bear witness, he has confest it.
   By God's lid, an you had not confest it --

   LOR. JU.  Oh, cousin, forbear, forbear.

   STEP.  Nay, I have done, cousin.

   PROS.  Why, you have done like a gentleman, he has
   confest it, what would you more?

   LOR. JU.  Sirrah, how dost thou like him?

   PROS.  Oh, it's a precious good fool, make much on him:
   I can compare him to nothing more happily than a barber's
   virginals; for every one may play upon him.

   MUS.  Gentleman, shall I intreat a word with you?

   LOR. JU.  With all my heart, sir, you have not another
   Toledo to sell, have you?

   MUS.  You are pleasant, your name is Signior Lorenzo,
   as I take it?

   LOR. JU.  You are in the right: 'Sblood, he means to
   catechise me, I think.

   MUS.  No, sir, I leave that to the Curate, I am none of
   that coat.

   LOR. JU.  And yet of as bare a coat; well, say, sir.

   MUS.  Faith, Signior, I am but servant to God Mars
   extraordinary, and indeed (this brass varnish being
   washed off, and three or four other tricks sublated)
   I appear yours in reversion, after the decease of
   your good father, Musco.

   LOR. JU.  Musco, 'sblood, what wind hath blown thee
   hither in this shape?

   MUS.  Your easterly wind, sir, the same that blew
   your father hither.

   LOR. JU.  My father?

   MUS.  Nay, never start, it's true, he is come to town
   of purpose to seek you.

   LOR. JU.  Sirrah Prospero, what shall we do, sirrah?
   my father is come to the city.

   PROS.  Thy father: where is he?

   MUS.  At a gentleman's house yonder by St. Anthony's,
   where he but stays my return; and then --

   PROS.  Who's this?  Musco?

   MUS.  The same, sir.

   PROS.  Why, how com'st thou transmuted thus?

   MUS.  Faith, a device, a device, nay, for the love of God,
   stand not here, gentlemen, house yourselves, and I'll tell
   you all.

   LOR. JU.  But art thou sure he will stay thy return?

   MUS.  Do I live, sir? what a question is that!

   PROS.  Well, we'll prorogue his expectation a little:
   Musco, thou shalt go with us: Come on, gentlemen: nay,
   I pray thee, (good rascal) droop not, 'sheart, an our
   wits be so gouty, that one old plodding brain can outstrip
   us all.  Lord, I beseech thee, may they lie and starve
   in some miserable spittle, where they may never see the
   face of any true spirit again, but be perpetually haunted
   with some church-yard hobgoblin in seculo seculorum.

   MUS.  Amen, Amen.





   PIS.  He will expect you, sir, within this half hour.

   THO.  Why, what's a clock?

   PIS.  New stricken ten.

   THO.  Hath he the money ready, can you tell?

   PIS.  Yes, sir, Baptista brought it yesternight.

   THO.  Oh, that's well: fetch me my cloak.
   Stay, let me see; an hour to go and come,
   Ay, that will be the least: and then 'twill be
   An hour before I can dispatch with him;
   Or very near: well, I will say two hours;
   Two hours? ha! things never dreamt of yet
   May be contrived, ay, and effected too,
   In two hours' absence: well, I will not go.
   Two hours; no, fleering opportunity,
   I will not give your treachery that scope.
   Who will not judge him worthy to be robb'd,
   That sets his doors wide open to a thief,
   And shews the felon where his treasure lies?
   Again, what earthy spirit but will attempt
   To taste the fruit of beauty's golden tree,
   When leaden sleep seals up the dragon's eyes?
   Oh, beauty is a project of some power,
   Chiefly when opportunity attends her:
   She will infuse true motion in a stone,
   Put glowing fire in an icy soul,
   Stuff peasants' bosoms with proud Caesar's spleen,
   Pour rich device into an empty brain:
   Bring youth to folly's gate: there train him in,
   And after all, extenuate his sin.
   Well, I will not go, I am resolved for that.
   Go, carry it again: yet stay: yet do too,
   I will defer it till some other time.


   PIS.  Sir, Signior Platano will meet you there with
   the bond.

   THO.  That's true: by Jesu, I had clean forgot it.
   I must go, what's a clock?

   PIS.  Past ten, sir.

   THO.  'Heart, then will Prospero presently be here too,
   With one or other of his loose consorts.
   I am a Jew if I know what to say,
   What course to take, or which way to resolve.
   My brain (methinks) is like an hour-glass,
   And my imaginations like the sands
   Run dribbling forth to fill the mouth of time,
   Still changed with turning in the ventricle.
   What were I best to do? it shall be so.
   Nay, I dare build upon his secrecy.  Piso.

   PIS.  Sir.

   THO.  Yet now I have bethought me too, I will not.
   Is Cob within?

   PIS.  I think he be, sir.

   THO.  But he'll prate too, there's no talk of him.
   No, there were no course upon the earth to this,
   If I durst trust him; tut, I were secure,
   But there's the question now, if he should prove,
   Rimarum plenus, then, 'sblood, I were rook'd.
   The state that he hath stood in till this present
   Doth promise no such change: what should I fear then?
   Well, come what will, I'll tempt my fortune once.
   Piso, thou mayest deceive me, but I think thou lovest
   me, Piso.

   PIS.  Sir, if a servant's zeal and humble duty may
   be term'd love, you are possest of it.

   THO.  I have a matter to impart to thee, but thou must
   be secret, Piso.

   PIS.  Sir, for that --

   THO.  Nay, hear me, man; think I esteem thee well,
   To let thee in thus to my private thoughts;
   Piso, it is a thing sits nearer to my crest,
   Than thou art 'ware of; if thou should'st reveal it --

   PIS.  Reveal it, sir?

   THO.  Nay, I do not think thou would'st, but if thou
   should'st --

   PIS.  Sir, then I were a villain:
   Disclaim in me for ever if I do.

   THO.  He will not swear: he has some meaning, sure,
   Else (being urged so much) how should he choose,
   But lend an oath to all this protestation?
   He is no puritan, that I am certain of.
   What should I think of it? urge him again,
   And in some other form: I will do so.
   Well, Piso, thou has sworn not to disclose; ay, you
   did swear?

   PIS.  Not yet, sir, but I will, so please you.

   THO.  Nay, I dare take thy word.
   But if thou wilt swear, do as you think good,
   I am resolved without such circumstance.

   PIS.  By my soul's safety, sir, I here protest,
   My tongue shall ne'er take knowledge of a word
   Deliver'd me in compass of your trust.

   THO.  Enough, enough, these ceremonies need not,
   I know thy faith to be as firm as brass.
   Piso, come hither: nay, we must be close
   In managing these actions: So it is,
   (Now he has sworn I dare the safelier speak;)
   I have of late by divers observations --
   But, whether his oath be lawful, yea, or no? ha!
   I will ask counsel ere I do proceed:
   Piso, it will be now too long to stay,
   We'll spy some fitter time soon, or to-morrow.

   PIS.  At your pleasure, sir.

   THO.  I pray you search the books 'gainst I return
   For the receipts 'twixt me and Platano.

   PIS.  I will, sir.

   THO.  And hear you: if my brother Prospero
   Chance to bring hither any gentlemen
   Ere I come back, let one straight bring me word.

   PIS.  Very well, sir.

   THO.  Forget it not, nor be not you out of the way.

   PIS.  I will not, sir.

   THO.  Or whether he come or no, if any other,
   Stranger or else: fail not to send me word.

   PIS.  Yes, sir.

   THO.  Have care, I pray you, and remember it.

   PIS.  I warrant you, sir.

   THO.  But, Piso, this is not the secret I told thee of.

   PIS.  No, sir, I suppose so.

   THO.  Nay, believe me, it is not.

   PIS.  I do believe you, sir.

   THO.  By heaven it is not, that's enough.
   Marry, I would not thou should'st utter it to any
   creature living,
   Yet I care not.
   Well, I must hence: Piso, conceive thus much,
   No ordinary person could have drawn
   So deep a secret from me; I mean not this,
   But that I have to tell thee: this is nothing, this.
   Piso, remember, silence, buried here:
   No greater hell than to be slave to fear.

   [EXIT THO.]

   PIS.  Piso, remember, silence, buried here:
   When should this flow of passion (trow) take head? ha!
   Faith, I'll dream no longer of this running humour,
   For fear I sink, the violence of the stream
   Already hath transported me so far
   That I can feel no ground at all: but soft,
   Oh, it's our water-bearer: somewhat has crost him now.

   COB.  Fasting days: what tell you me of your fasting days?
   would they were all on a light fire for me: they say the
   world shall be consumed with fire and brimstone in the
   latter day: but I would we had these ember weeks and these
   villainous Fridays burnt in the mean time, and then --

   PIS.  Why, how now, Cob! what moves thee to this choler, ha?

   COB.  Collar, sir? 'swounds, I scorn your collar, I, sir,
   am no collier's horse, sir, never ride me with your collar,
   an you do, I'll shew you a jade's trick.

   PIS.  Oh, you'll slip your head out of the collar: why, Cob,
   you mistake me.

   COB.  Nay, I have my rheum, and I be angry as well as
   another, sir.

   PIE.  Thy rheum? thy humour, man, thou mistakest.

   COB.  Humour? mack, I think it be so indeed: what is
   this humour? it's some rare thing, I warrant.

   PIS.  Marry, I'll tell thee what it is (as 'tis generally
   received in these days): it is a monster bred in a man by
   self-love and affectation, and fed by folly.

   COB.  How? must it be fed?

   PIS.  Oh ay, humour is nothing if it be not fed, why,
   didst thou never hear of that? it's a common phrase,
   "Feed my humour."

   COB.  I'll none on it: humour, avaunt, I know you not,
   be gone.  Let who will make hungry meals for you, it shall
   not be I: Feed you, quoth he? 'sblood, I have much ado to
   feed myself, especially on these lean rascal days too,
   an't had been any other day but a fasting day: a plague on
   them all for me: by this light, one might have done God
   good service and have drown'd them all in the flood two or
   three hundred thousand years ago, oh, I do stomach them
   hugely: I have a maw now, an't were for Sir Bevis's horse.

   PIS.  Nay, but I pray thee, Cob, what makes thee so out of
   love with fasting days?

   COB.  Marry, that that will make any man out of love with
   them, I think: their bad conditions, an you will needs know:
   First, they are of a Flemish breed, I am sure on't, for
   they raven up more butter than all the days of the week
   beside: next, they stink of fish miserably: thirdly, they'll
   keep a man devoutly hungry all day, and at night send him
   supperless to bed.

   PIS.  Indeed, these are faults, Cob.

   COB.  Nay, an this were all, 'twere something, but they
   are the only known enemies to my generation.  A fasting
   day no sooner comes, but my lineage goes to rack, poor
   Cobs, they smoke for it, they melt in passion, and your
   maids too know this, and yet would have me turn Hannibal,
   and eat my own fish and blood: my princely coz,
   [PULLS OUT A RED HERRING.] fear nothing;
   I have not the heart to devour you, an I might be made
   as rich as Golias: oh, that I had room for my tears, I
   could weep salt water enough now to preserve the lives
   of ten thousand of my kin: but I may curse none but
   these filthy Almanacks, for an 'twere not for them, these
   days of persecution would ne'er be known.  I'll be hang'd
   an some fishmonger's son do not make on them, and puts in
   more fasting days than he should do, because he would
   utter his father's dried stockfish.

   PIS.  'Soul, peace, thou'lt be beaten like a stockfish
   else: here is Signior Matheo.


   Now must I look out for a messenger to my master.



   PROS.  Beshrew me, but it was an absolute good jest, and
   exceedingly well carried.

   LOR. JU.  Ay, and our ignorance maintain'd it as well,
   did it not?

   PROS.  Yes, faith, but was't possible thou should'st not
   know him?

   LOR. JU.  'Fore God, not I, an I might have been join'd
   patten with one of the nine worthies for knowing him.
   'Sblood, man, he had so writhen himself into the habit of
   one of your poor Disparview's here, your decayed, ruinous,
   worm-eaten gentlemen of the round: such as have vowed to
   sit on the skirts of the city, let your Provost and his
   half dozen of halberdiers do what they can; and have
   translated begging out of the old hackney pace, to a fine
   easy amble, and made it run as smooth off the tongue as a
   shove-groat shilling, into the likeness of one of these
   lean Pirgo's, had he moulded himself so perfectly, observing
   every trick of their action, as varying the accent: swearing
   with an emphasis.  Indeed, all with so special and exquisite
   a grace, that (hadst thou seen him) thou would'st have sworn
   he might have been the Tamberlane, or the Agamemnon on the

   PROS.  Why, Musco, who would have thought thou hadst been
   such a gallant?

   LOR. JU.  I cannot tell, but (unless a man had juggled
   begging all his life time, and been a weaver of phrases
   from his infancy, for the apparelling of it) I think
   the world cannot produce his rival.

   PROS.  Where got'st thou this coat, I marle?

   MUS.  Faith, sir, I had it of one of the devil's near
   kinsmen, a broker.

   PROS.  That cannot be, if the proverb hold, a crafty
   knave needs no broker.

   MUS.  True, sir, but I need a broker, ergo, no crafty

   PROS.  Well put off, well put off.

   LOR. JU.  Tut, he has more of these shifts.

   MUS.  And yet where I have one, the broker has ten, sir.


   PIS.  Francisco, Martino, ne'er a one to be found now:
   what a spite's this?

   PROS.  How now, Piso? is my brother within?

   PIS.  No, sir, my master went forth e'en now, but Signior
   Giuliano is within.  Cob, what, Cob!  Is he gone too?

   PROS.  Whither went thy master?  Piso, canst thou tell?

   PIS.  I know not, to Doctor Clement's, I think, sir.  Cob.

   [EXIT PIS.]

   LOR. JU.  Doctor Clement, what's he?  I have heard much
   speech of him.

   PROS.  Why, dost thou not know him? he is the Gonfaloniere
   of the state here, an excellent rare civilian, and a great
   scholar, but the only mad merry old fellow in Europe: I
   shewed him you the other day.

   LOR. JU.  Oh, I remember him now; Good faith, and he hath
   a very strange presence, methinks, it shews as if he stood
   out of the rank from other men. I have heard many of his
   jests in Padua; they say he will commit a man for taking
   the wall of his horse.

   PROS.  Ay, or wearing his cloak on one shoulder, or any
   thing indeed, if it come in the way of his humour.

   PIS.  Gaspar, Martino, Cob: 'Sheart, where should they be,


   BOB.  Signior Thorello's man, I pray thee vouchsafe
   us the lighting of this match.

   PIS.  A pox on your match, no time but now to vouchsafe?
   Francisco, Cob.


   BOB.  Body of me: here's the remainder of seven pound,
   since yesterday was sevennight.  It's your right Trinidado:
   did you never take any, signior?

   STEP.  No, truly, sir; but I'll learn to take it now, since
   you commend it so.

   BOB.  Signior, believe me (upon my relation) for what I
   tell you, the world shall not improve.  I have been in the
   Indies, (where this herb grows) where neither myself nor a
   dozen gentlemen more (of my knowledge) have received the
   taste of any other nutriment in the world, for the space
   of one and twenty weeks, but tobacco only.  Therefore it
   cannot be but 'tis most divine.  Further, take it in the
   nature, in the true kind, so, it makes an antidote, that had
   you taken the most deadly poisonous simple in all Florence it
   should expel it, and clarify you with as much ease as I speak.
   And for your green wound, your Balsamum, and your -- are all
   mere gulleries, and trash to it, especially your Trinidado:
   your Nicotian is good too: I could say what I know of the
   virtue of it, for the exposing of rheums, raw humours,
   crudities, obstructions, with a thousand of this kind; but I
   profess myself no quack-salver.  Only thus much; by Hercules,
   I do hold it, and will affirm it (before any Prince in
   Europe) to be the most sovereign and precious herb that ever
   the earth tendered to the use of man.

   LOR. JU.  Oh, this speech would have done rare in an
   apothecary's mouth.


   PIS.  Ay; close by Saint Anthony's: Doctor Clement's.

   COB.  Oh, oh.

   BOB.  Where's the match I gave thee?

   PIS.  'Sblood, would his match, and he, and pipe, and
   all, were at Sancto Domingo.


   COB.  By God's deins, I marle what pleasure or felicity
   they have in taking this roguish tobacco; it's good for
   and embers: there were four died out of one house last
   week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for
   yesternight, one of them (they say) will ne'er escape it,
   he voided a bushel of soot yesterday, upward and downward.
   By the stocks, an there were no wiser men than I, I'd
   have it present death, man or woman, that should but deal
   with a tobacco pipe; why, it will stifle them all in the
   end as many as use it; it's little better than rat's-bane.


   ALL.  Oh, good Signior; hold, hold.

   BOB.  You base cullion, you.

   PIS.  Sir, here's your match; come, thou must needs be
   talking too.

   COB.  Nay, he will not meddle with his match, I warrant
   you; well, it shall be a dear beating, an I live.

   BOB.  Do you prate?

   LOR. JU.  Nay, good Signior, will you regard the humour
   of a fool?  Away, knave.

   PROS.  Piso, get him away.


   BOB.  A whoreson filthy slave, a turd, an excrement.
   Body of Caesar, but that I scorn to let forth so mean a
   spirit, I'd have stabb'd him to the earth.

   PROS.  Marry, God forbid, sir.

   BOB.  By this fair heaven, I would have done it.

   STEP.  Oh, he swears admirably; (by this fair heaven!)
   Body of Caesar: I shall never do it, sure (upon my salvation).
   No, I have not the right grace.

   MAT.  Signior, will you any?  By this air, the most divine
   tobacco as ever I drunk.

   LOR. JU.  I thank you, sir.

   STEP.  Oh, this gentleman doth it rarely too, but nothing
   like the other.  By this air, as I am a gentleman: By Phoebus.


   MUS.  Master, glance, glance: Signior Prospero.

   STEP.  As I have a soul to be saved, I do protest --

   PROS.  That you are a fool.

   LOR. JU.  Cousin, will you any tobacco?

   STEP.  Ay, sir: upon my salvation.

   LOR. JU.  How now, cousin?

   STEP.  I protest, as I am a gentleman, but no soldier indeed.

   PROS.  No, Signior, as I remember, you served on a great horse,
   last general muster.

   STEP.  Ay, sir, that's true, cousin, may I swear as I am a
   soldier, by that?

   LOR. JU.  Oh yes, that you may.

   STEP.  Then as I am a gentleman, and a soldier, it is divine

   PROS.  But soft, where's Signior Matheo? gone?

   MUS.  No, sir, they went in here.

   PROS.  Oh, let's follow them: Signior Matheo is gone to
   salute his mistress, sirrah, now thou shalt hear some of
   his verses, for he never comes hither without some shreds
   of poetry: Come, Signior Stephano.  Musco.

   STEP.  Musco? where?  Is this Musco?

   LOR. JU.  Ay; but peace, cousin, no words of it at any hand.

   STEP.  Not I, by this fair heaven, as I have a soul to be
   saved, by Phoebus.

   PROS.  Oh rare! your cousin's discourse is simply suited,
   all in oaths.

   LOR. JU.  Ay, he lacks nothing but a little light stuff,
   to draw them out withal, and he were rarely fitted to the




   THO.  Ha, how many are there, sayest thou?

   COB.  Marry, sir, your brother, Signior Prospero.

   THO.  Tut, beside him: what strangers are there, man?

   COB.  Strangers? let me see, one, two; mass, I know not well,
   there's so many.

   THO.  How? so many?

   COB.  Ay, there's some five or six of them at the most.

   THO.  A swarm, a swarm?
   Spite of the devil, how they sting my heart!
   How long hast thou been coming hither, Cob?

   COB.  But a little while, sir.

   THO.  Didst thou come running?

   COB.  No, sir.

   THO.  Tut, then I am familiar with thy haste.
   Ban to my fortunes: what meant I to marry?
   I that before was rank'd in such content,
   My mind attired in smooth silken peace,
   Being free master of mine own free thoughts,
   And now become a slave? what, never sigh,
   Be of good cheer, man: for thou art a cuckold,
   'Tis done, 'tis done: nay, when such flowing store,
   Plenty itself falls in my wife's lap,
   The Cornucopiae will be mine, I know.  But, Cob,
   What entertainment had they?  I am sure
   My sister and my wife would bid them welcome, ha?

   COB.  Like enough: yet I heard not a word of welcome.

   THO.  No, their lips were seal'd with kisses, and the voice
   Drown'd in a flood of joy at their arrival,
   Had lost her motion, state, and faculty.
   Cob, which of them was't that first kiss'd my wife?
   (My sister, I should say,) my wife, alas,
   I fear not her: ha? who was it, say'st thou?

   COB.  By my troth, sir, will you have the truth of it?

   THO.  Oh ay, good Cob: I pray thee.

   COB.  God's my judge, I saw nobody to be kiss'd, unless
   they would have kiss'd the post in the middle of the
   warehouse; for there I left them all, at their tobacco,
   with a pox.

   THO.  How? were they not gone in then ere thou cam'st?

   COB.  Oh no, sir.

   THO.  Spite of the devil, what do I stay here then?
   Cob, follow me.

   [EXIT THO.]

   COB.  Nay, soft and fair, I have eggs on the spit; I cannot
   go yet sir: now am I for some divers reasons hammering,
   hammering revenge: oh, for three or four gallons of vinegar,
   to sharpen my wits: Revenge, vinegar revenge, russet revenge;
   nay, an he had not lien in my house, 'twould never have
   grieved me; but being my guest, one that I'll be sworn my
   wife has lent him her smock off her back, while his own shirt
   has been at washing: pawned her neckerchers for clean bands
   for him: sold almost all my platters to buy him tobacco;
   and yet to see an ingratitude wretch strike his host;
   well, I hope to raise up an host of furies for't: here
   comes M. Doctor.


   CLEM.  What's Signior Thorello gone?

   PET.  Ay, sir.

   CLEM.  Heart of me, what made him leave us so abruptly?
   How now, sirrah; what make you here? what would you
   have, ha?

   COB.  An't please your worship, I am a poor neighbour of
   your worship's.

   CLEM.  A neighbour of mine, knave?

   COB.  Ay, sir, at the sign of the Water-tankard, hard by
   the Green Lattice: I have paid scot and lot there any
   time this eighteen years.

   CLEM.  What, at the Green Lattice?

   COB.  No sir: to the parish: marry, I have seldom scaped
   scot-free at the Lattice.

   CLEM.  So: but what business hath my neighbour?

   COB.  An't like your worship, I am come to crave the
   peace of your worship.

   CLEM.  Of me, knave? peace of me, knave? did I e'er
   hurt thee? did I ever threaten thee? or wrong thee? ha?

   COB.  No, God's my comfort, I mean your worship's warrant,
   for one that hath wrong'd me, sir: his arms are at too much
   liberty, I would fain have them bound to a treaty of peace,
   an I could by any means compass it.

   LOR.  Why, dost thou go in danger of thy life for him?

   swear, by the laws of the land, that he kill'd me.

   CLEM.  How? how, knave? swear he kill'd thee? what pretext?
   what colour hast thou for that?

   COB.  Marry, sir, both black and blue, colour enough, I
   warrant you, I have it here to shew your worship.

   CLEM.  What is he that gave you this, sirrah?

   COB.  A gentleman in the city, sir.

   CLEM.  A gentleman? what call you him?

   COB.  Signior Bobadilla.

   CLEM.  Good: But wherefore did he beat you, sirrah?
   how began the quarrel 'twixt you? ha: speak truly,
   knave, I advise you.

   COB.  Marry, sir, because I spake against their vagrant
   tobacco, as I came by them: for nothing else.

   CLEM.  Ha, you speak against tobacco?  Peto, his name.

   PET.  What's your name, sirrah?

   COB.  Oliver Cob, sir, set Oliver Cob, sir.

   CLEM.  Tell Oliver Cob he shall go to the jail.

   PET.  Oliver Cob, master Doctor says you shall go to the jail.

   COB.  Oh, I beseech your worship, for God's love, dear master

   CLEM.  Nay, God's precious! an such drunken knaves as you are
   come to dispute of tobacco once, I have done: away with him.

   COB.  Oh, good master Doctor, sweet gentleman.

   LOR. SE.  Sweet Oliver, would I could do thee any good; master
   Doctor, let me intreat, sir.

   CLEM.  What? a tankard-bearer, a thread-bare rascal, a beggar,
   a slave that never drunk out of better than piss-pot metal in
   his life, and he to deprave and abuse the virtue of an herb so
   generally received in the courts of princes, the chambers of
   nobles, the bowers of sweet ladies, the cabins of soldiers:
   Peto, away with him, by God's passion, I say, go to.

   COB.  Dear master Doctor.

   LOR. SE.  Alas, poor Oliver.

   CLEM.  Peto: ay: and make him a warrant, he shall not go,
   I but fear the knave.

   COB.  O divine Doctor, thanks, noble Doctor, most dainty
   Doctor, delicious Doctor.


   CLEM.  Signior Lorenzo: God's pity, man,
   Be merry, be merry, leave these dumps.

   LOR. SE.  Troth, would I could, sir: but enforced mirth
   (In my weak judgment) has no happy birth.
   The mind, being once a prisoner unto cares,
   The more it dreams on joy, the worse it fares.
   A smiling look is to a heavy soul
   As a gilt bias to a leaden bowl,
   Which (in itself) appears most vile, being spent
   To no true use; but only for ostent.

   CLEM.  Nay, but, good Signior, hear me a word, hear me a word,
   your cares are nothing; they are like my cap, soon put on,
   and as soon put off.  What? your son is old enough to govern
   himself; let him run his course, it's the only way to make
   him a staid man: if he were an unthrift, a ruffian, a
   drunkard, or a licentious liver, then you had reason: you had
   reason to take care: but being none of these, God's passion,
   an I had twice so many cares as you have, I'd drown them all
   in a cup of sack: come, come, I muse your parcel of a soldier
   returns not all this while.




   GIU.  Well, sister, I tell you true: and you'll find
   it so in the end.

   BIA.  Alas, brother, what would you have me to do?
   I cannot help it; you see, my brother Prospero he brings
   them in here, they are his friends.

   GIU.  His friends? his friends? 'sblood, they do nothing
   but haunt him up and down like a sort of unlucky sprites,
   and tempt him to all manner of villainy that can be thought
   of; well, by this light, a little thing would make me play
   the devil with some of them; an't were not more for your
   husband's sake than any thing else, I'd make the house too
   hot for them; they should say and swear, hell were broken
   loose, ere they went.  But by God's bread, 'tis nobody's
   fault but yours; for an you had done as you might have done,
   they should have been damn'd ere they should have come
   in, e'er a one of them.

   BIA.  God's my life; did you ever hear the like? what a
   strange man is this! could I keep out all them, think you?
   I should put myself against half a dozen men, should I?
   Good faith, you'd mad the patient'st body in the world,
   to hear you talk so, without any sense or reason.


   HESP.  Servant, (in troth) you are too prodigal of your
   wits' treasure, thus to pour it forth upon so mean a
   subject as my worth.

   MAT.  You say well, you say well.

   GIU.  Hoyday, here is stuff.

   LOR. JU.  Oh now stand close; pray God she can get
   him to read it.

   PROS.  Tut, fear not: I warrant thee he will do it of
   himself with much impudency.

   HES.  Servant, what is that same, I pray you?

   MAT.  Marry, an Elegy, an Elegy, an odd toy.

   GIU.  Ay, to mock an ape withal.  O Jesu.

   BIA.  Sister, I pray you let's hear it.

   MAT.  Mistress, I'll read it, if you please.

   HES.  I pray you do, servant.

   GIU.  Oh, here's no foppery.  'Sblood, it frets me to the
   gall to think on it.


   PROS.  Oh ay, it is his condition, peace: we are fairly
   rid of him.

   MAT.  Faith, I did it in an humour: I know not how it is,
   but please you come near, signior: this gentleman hath
   judgment, he knows how to censure of a -- I pray you, sir,
   you can judge.

   STEP.  Not I, sir: as I have a soul to be saved, as I am a

   LOR. JU.  Nay, it's well; so long as he doth not forswear

   BOB.  Signior, you abuse the excellency of your mistress and
   her fair sister.  Fie, while you live avoid this prolixity.

   MAT.  I shall, sir; well, incipere dulce.

   LOR. JU.  How, incipere dulce? a sweet thing to be a fool

   PROS.  What, do you take incipere in that sense?

   LOR. JU.  You do not, you?  'Sblood, this was your villainy
   to gull him with a motte.

   PROS.  Oh, the benchers' phrase: pauca verba, pauca verba.

   MAT.  "Rare creature, let me speak without offence,
   Would God my rude words had the influence
   To rule thy thoughts, as thy fair looks do mine,
   Then shouldst thou be his prisoner, who is thine."

   LOR. JU.  'Sheart, this is in Hero and Leander!

   PROS.  Oh ay: peace, we shall have more of this.

   MAT.  "Be not unkind and fair: misshapen stuff
   Is of behaviour boisterous and rough":
   How like you that, Signior? 'sblood, he shakes his head
   like a bottle, to feel an there be any brain in it.

   MAT.  But observe the catastrophe now,
   "And I in duty will exceed all other,
   As you in beauty do excel love's mother."

   LOR. JU.  Well, I'll have him free of the brokers, for
   he utters nothing but stolen remnants.

   PROS.  Nay, good critic, forbear.

   LOR. JU.  A pox on him, hang him, filching rogue, steal
   from the dead? it's worse than sacrilege.

   PROS.  Sister, what have you here? verses?  I pray you
   let's see.

   BIA.  Do you let them go so lightly, sister?

   HES.  Yes, faith, when they come lightly.

   BIA.  Ay, but if your servant should hear you, he would
   take it heavily.

   HES.  No matter, he is able to bear.

   BIA.  So are asses.

   HES.  So is he.

   PROS.  Signior Matheo, who made these verses? they are
   excellent good.

   MAT.  O God, sir, it's your pleasure to say so, sir.
   Faith, I made them extempore this morning.

   PROS.  How extempore?

   MAT.  Ay, would I might be damn'd else; ask Signior Bobadilla.
   He saw me write them, at the -- (pox on it) the Mitre yonder.

   MUS.  Well, an the Pope knew he cursed the Mitre it were
   enough to have him excommunicated all the taverns in the town.

   STEP.  Cousin, how do you like this gentleman's verses?

   LOR. JU.  Oh, admirable, the best that ever I heard.

   STEP.  By this fair heavens, they are admirable,
   The best that ever I heard.


   GIU.  I am vext I can hold never a bone of me still,
   'Sblood, I think they mean to build a Tabernacle here, well?

   PROS.  Sister, you have a simple servant here, that crowns
   your beauty with such encomiums and devices, you may see what
   it is to be the mistress of a wit that can make your
   perfections so transparent, that every blear eye may look
   through them, and see him drowned over head and ears in the
   deep well of desire.  Sister Biancha, I marvel you get you
   not a servant that can rhyme and do tricks too.

   GIU.  O monster! impudence itself! tricks!

   BIA.  Tricks, brother? what tricks?

   HES.  Nay, speak, I pray you, what tricks?

   BIA.  Ay, never spare any body here: but say, what tricks?

   HES.  Passion of my heart! do tricks?

   PROS.  'Sblood, here's a trick vied, and revied: why, you
   monkeys, you! what a cater-wauling do you keep! has he not
   given you rhymes, and verses, and tricks?

   GIU.  Oh, see the devil!

   PROS.  Nay, you lamp of virginity, that take it in snuff so:
   come and cherish this tame poetical fury in your servant,
   you'll be begg'd else shortly for a concealment: go to,
   reward his muse, you cannot give him less than a shilling in
   conscience, for the book he had it out of cost him a teston
   at the least.  How now gallants, Lorenzo, Signior Bobadilla!
   what, all sons of silence? no spirit.

   GIU.  Come, you might practise your ruffian tricks somewhere
   else, and not here, I wiss: this is no tavern, nor no place
   for such exploits.

   PROS.  'Sheart, how now!

   GIU.  Nay, boy, never look askance at me for the matter;
   I'll tell you of it, by God's bread, ay, and you and your
   companions mend yourselves when I have done.

   PROS.  My companions?

   GIU.  Ay, your companions, sir, so I say!  'Sblood, I am not
   afraid of you nor them neither, you must have your poets,
   and your cavaliers, and your fools follow you up and down
   the city, and here they must come to domineer and swagger?
   sirrah, you ballad-singer, and slops, your fellow there,
   get you out; get you out: or (by the will of God) I'll cut
   off your ears, go to.

   PROS.  'Sblood, stay, let's see what he dare do: cut off his
   ears; you are an ass, touch any man here, and by the Lord
   I'll run my rapier to the hilts in thee.

   GIU.  Yea, that would I fain see, boy.

   BIA.  O Jesu!  Piso!  Matheo! murder!

   HES.  Help, help, Piso!


   LOR. JU.  Gentlemen, Prospero, forbear, I pray you.

   BOB.  Well, sirrah, you Holofernes: by my hand, I will pink
   thy flesh full of holes with my rapier for this, I will, by
   this good heaven: nay, let him come, let him come,
   gentlemen, by the body of St. George, I'll not kill him.


   PIS.  Hold, hold, forbear.

   GIU.  You whoreson, bragging coistril.


   THO.  Why, how now? what's the matter? what stir is here?
   Whence springs this quarrel?  Piso, where is he?
   Put up your weapons, and put off this rage.
   My wife and sister, they are cause of this.
   What, Piso? where is this knave?

   PIS.  Here, sir.

   PROS.  Come, let's go: this is one of my brother's ancient
   humours, this.

   STEP.  I am glad nobody was hurt by this ancient humour.


   THO.  Why, how now, brother, who enforced this brawl?

   GIU.  A sort of lewd rake-hells, that care neither for God
   nor the devil. And they must come here to read ballads and
   roguery, and trash.  I'll mar the knot of them ere I sleep,
   perhaps; especially Signior Pithagoras, he that's all
   manner of shapes: and songs and sonnets, his fellow there.

   HES.  Brother, indeed you are too violent,
   Too sudden in your courses, and you know
   My brother Prospero's temper will not bear
   Any reproof, chiefly in such a presence,
   Where every slight disgrace he should receive,
   Would wound him in opinion and respect.

   GIU.  Respect? what talk you of respect 'mongst such
   As had neither spark of manhood nor good manners?
   By God I am ashamed to hear you: respect?


   HES.  Yes, there was one a civil gentleman,
   And very worthily demeaned himself.

   THO.  Oh, that was some love of yours, sister.

   HES.  A love of mine? i'faith, I would he were
   No other's love but mine.

   BIA.  Indeed, he seem'd to be a gentleman of an exceeding
   fair disposition, and of very excellent good parts.


   THO.  Her love, by Jesu: my wife's minion,
   Fair disposition? excellent good parts?
   'Sheart, these phrases are intolerable,
   Good parts? how should she know his parts? well, well,
   It is too plain, too clear: Piso, come hither.
   What, are they gone?

   PIS.  Ay, sir, they went in.

   THO.  Are any of the gallants within?

   PIS.  No sir, they are all gone.

   THO.  Art thou sure of it?

   PIS.  Ay, sir, I can assure you.

   THO.  Piso, what gentleman was that they praised so?

   PISO.  One they call him Signior Lorenzo, a fair young
   gentleman, sir.

   THO.  Ay, I thought so: my mind gave me as much:
   'Sblood, I'll be hang'd if they have not hid him in the house,
   Some where, I'll go search, Piso, go with me,
   Be true to me and thou shalt find me bountiful.




   COB.  What, Tib, Tib, I say.

   TIB.  How now, what cuckold is that knocks so hard?
   Oh, husband, is't you? What's the news?

   COB.  Nay, you have stunn'd me, i'faith; you have given me
   a knock on the forehead will stick by me: cuckold?
   'Swounds, cuckold?

   TIB.  Away, you fool, did I know it was you that knock'd?
   Come, come, you may call me as bad when you list.

   COB.  May I? 'swounds, Tib, you are a whore.

   TIB.  'Sheart, you lie in your throat.

   COB.  How, the lie? and in my throat too? do you long to
   be stabb'd, ha?

   TIB.  Why, you are no soldier?

   COB.  Mass, that's true, when was Bobadilla here? that
   rogue, that slave, that fencing Burgullion?  I'll tickle
   him, i'faith.

   TIB.  Why, what's the matter?

   COB.  Oh, he hath basted me rarely, sumptuously: but I have
   it here will sauce him, oh, the doctor, the honestest old
   Trojan in all Italy, I do honour the very flea of his dog:
   a plague on him, he put me once in a villainous filthy fear:
   marry, it vanish'd away like the smoke of tobacco: but I was
   smok'd soundly first, I thank the devil, and his good angel
   my guest: well, wife, or Tib, (which you will) get you in,
   and lock the door, I charge you; let nobody into you, not
   Bobadilla himself, nor the devil in his likeness; you are a
   woman; you have flesh and blood enough in you; therefore be
   not tempted; keep the door shut upon all comers.

   TIB.  I warrant you there shall nobody enter here without my

   COB.  Nor with your consent, sweet Tib, and so I leave you.

   TIB.  It's more than you know, whether you leave me so.

   COB.  How?

   TIB.  Why, sweet.

   COB.  Tut, sweet or sour, thou art a flower.
   Keep close thy door, I ask no more.




   LOR JU.  Well, Musco, perform this business happily,
   And thou makest a conquest of my love for ever.

   PROS.  I'faith, now let thy spirits put on their best habit,
   But at any hand remember thy message to my brother,
   For there's no other means to start him.

   MUS.  I warrant you, sir, fear nothing; I have a nimble soul
   that hath waked all my imaginative forces by this time, and
   put them in true motion: what you have possest me withal,
   I'll discharge it amply, sir.  Make no question.


   PROS.  That's well said, Musco: faith, sirrah, how dost thou
   approve my wit in this device?

   LOR JU.  Troth, well, howsoever; but excellent if it take.

   PROS.  Take, man: why, it cannot choose but take, if the
   circumstances miscarry not, but tell me zealously: dost thou
   affect my sister Hesperida, as thou pretendest?

   LOR JU.  Prospero, by Jesu.

   PROS.  Come, do not protest, I believe thee: i'faith, she is
   a virgin of good ornament, and much modesty, unless I
   conceived very worthily of her, thou shouldest not have her.

   LOR JU.  Nay, I think it a question whether I shall have her
   for all that.

   PROS.  'Sblood, thou shalt have her, by this light, thou shalt!

   LOR JU.  Nay, do not swear.

   PROS.  By St. Mark, thou shalt have her: I'll go fetch her
   presently, 'point but where to meet, and by this hand,
   I'll bring her!

   LOR JU.  Hold, hold, what, all policy dead? no prevention of
   mischiefs stirring.

   PROS.  Why, by -- what shall I swear by? thou shalt have her,
   by my soul.

   LOR. JU.  I pray thee have patience, I am satisfied: Prospero,
   omit no offered occasion that may make my desires complete, I
   beseech thee.

   PROS.  I warrant thee.





   PETO.  Was your man a soldier, sir?

   LOR. SE.  Ay, a knave, I took him up begging upon the way,
   This morning as I was coming to the city.
   Oh! here he is; come on, you make fair speed:
   Why, where in God's name have you been so long?

   MUS.  Marry, (God's my comfort) where I thought I should
   have had little comfort of your worship's service.

   LOR. SE.  How so?

   MUS.  O God, sir! your coming to the city, and your
   entertainment of men, and your sending me to watch;
   indeed, all the circumstances are as open to your son as
   to yourself.

   LOR. SE.  How should that be?  Unless that villain Musco
   Have told him of the letter, and discovered
   All that I strictly charged him to conceal? 'tis so.

   MUS.  I'faith, you have hit it: 'tis so indeed.

   LOR. SE.  But how should he know thee to be my man?

   MUS.  Nay, sir, I cannot tell; unless it were by the
   black art? is not your son a scholar, sir?

   LOR. SE.  Yes; but I hope his soul is not allied
   To such a devilish practice: if it were,
   I had just cause to weep my part in him.
   And curse the time of his creation.
   But where didst thou find them, Portensio?

   MUS.  Nay, sir, rather you should ask where they found me?
   for I'll be sworn I was going along in the street,
   thinking nothing, when (of a sudden) one calls, "Signior
   Lorenzo's man": another, he cries "soldier": and thus half
   a dozen of them, till they had got me within doors, where
   I no sooner came, but out flies their rapiers and all bent
   against my breast, they swore some two or three hundred
   oaths, and all to tell me I was but a dead man, if I did
   not confess where you were, and how I was employed, and
   about what; which, when they could not get out of me, (as
   God's my judge, they should have kill'd me first,) they
   lock'd me up into a room in the top of a house, where, by
   great miracle, (having a light heart) I slid down by a
   bottom of packthread into the street, and so scaped: but,
   master, thus much I can assure you, for I heard it while I
   was lock'd up: there were a great many merchants and rich
   citizens' wives with them at a banquet, and your son,
   Signior Lorenzo, has 'pointed one of them to meet anon at
   one Cob's house, a water-bearer's, that dwells by the wall:
   now there you shall be sure to take him: for fail he will not.

   LOR. SE.  Nor will I fail to break this match, I doubt not;
   Well, go thou along with master Doctor's man,
   And stay there for me; at one Cob's house, say'st thou?


   MUS.  Ay, sir, there you shall have him: when can you tell?
   Much wench, or much son: 'sblood, when he has stay'd there
   three or four hours, travelling with the expectation of
   somewhat; and at the length be delivered of nothing: oh,
   the sport that I should then take to look on him if I durst;
   but now I mean to appear no more afore him in this shape:
   I have another trick to act yet; oh, that I were so happy
   as to light upon an ounce now of this Doctor's clerk:
   God save you, sir.

   PETO.  I thank you, good sir.

   MUS.  I have made you stay somewhat long, sir.

   PETO.  Not a whit, sir, I pray you what, sir, do you mean?
   you have been lately in the wars, sir, it seems.

   MUS.  Ay, marry have I, sir.

   PETO.  Troth, sir, I would be glad to bestow a bottle of
   wine on you, if it please you to accept it.

   MUS.  O Lord, sir.

   PETO.  But to hear the manner of your services, and your
   devices in the wars, they say they be very strange, and
   not like those a man reads in the Roman histories.

   MUS.  O God, no, sir, why, at any time when it please you,
   I shall be ready to discourse to you what I know: and more
   too somewhat.

   PETO.  No better time than now, sir, we'll go to the
   Mermaid: there we shall have a cup of neat wine,
   I pray you, sir, let me request you.

   MUS.  I'll follow you, sir, he is mine own, i'faith.



   MAT.  Signior, did you ever see the like clown of him where
   we were to-day: Signior Prospero's brother?
   I think the whole earth cannot shew his like, by Jesu.

   LOR. JU.  We were now speaking of him, Signior Bobadillo
   tells me he is fallen foul of you too.

   MAT.  Oh ay, sir, he threatened me with the bastinado.

   BOB.  Ay, but I think I taught you a trick this morning for
   that.  You shall kill him without all question, if you be
   so minded.

   MAT.  Indeed, it is a most excellent trick.

   BOB.  Oh, you do not give spirit enough to your motion; you
   are too dull, too tardy: oh, it must be done like lightning,

   MAT.  Oh, rare.

   BOB.  Tut, 'tis nothing an't be not done in a --

   LOR. JU.  Signior, did you never play with any of our
   masters here?

   MAT.  Oh, good sir.

   BOB.  Nay, for a more instance of their preposterous humour,
   there came three or four of them to me, at a gentleman's house,
   where it was my chance to be resident at that time, to intreat
   my presence at their schools, and withal so much importuned me,
   that (I protest to you as I am a gentleman) I was ashamed of
   their rude demeanour out of all measure: well, I told them
   that to come to a public school they should pardon me, it was
   opposite to my humour, but if so they would attend me at my
   lodging, I protested to do them what right or favour I could,
   as I was a gentleman, etc.

   LOR. JU.  So sir, then you tried their skill.

   BOB.  Alas, soon tried: you shall hear, sir, within two
   or three days after they came, and by Jesu, good Signior,
   believe me, I graced them exceedingly, shewed them some
   two or three tricks of prevention hath got them since
   admirable credit, they cannot deny this; and yet now
   they hate me, and why? because I am excellent, and for
   no other reason on the earth.

   LOR. JU.  This is strange and vile as ever I heard.

   BOB.  I will tell you, sir, upon my first coming to the city,
   they assaulted me some three, four, five, six of them
   together, as I have walk'd alone in divers places of the
   city; as upon the Exchange, at my lodging, and at my
   ordinary, where I have driven them afore me the whole length
   of a street, in the open view of all our gallants, pitying
   to hurt them, believe me; yet all this lenity will not
   depress their spleen; they will be doing with the pismire,
   raising a hill a man may spurn abroad with his foot at
   pleasure: by my soul, I could have slain them all, but I
   delight not in murder: I am loth to bear any other but a
   bastinado for them, and yet I hold it good policy not to go
   disarm'd, for though I be skilful, I may be suppressed with

   LOR. JU.  Ay, by Jesu, may you, sir, and (in my conceit) our
   whole nation should sustain the loss by it, if it were so.

   BOB.  Alas, no: what's a peculiar man to a nation? not seen.

   LOR. JU.  Ay, but your skill, sir.

   BOB.  Indeed, that might be some loss, but who respects it?
   I will tell you, Signior, (in private) I am a gentleman,
   and live here obscure, and to myself; but were I known to
   the Duke (observe me) I would undertake (upon my head and
   life) for the public benefit of the state, not only to
   spare the entire lives of his subjects in general, but to
   save the one half, nay, three parts of his yearly charges,
   in holding wars generally against all his enemies; and how
   will I do it, think you?

   LOR. JU.  Nay, I know not, nor can I conceive.

   BOB.  Marry, thus, I would select nineteen more to myself,
   throughout the land, gentlemen they should be of good spirit;
   strong and able constitution, I would choose them by an
   instinct, a trick that I have, and I would teach these
   nineteen the special tricks, as your punto, your reverso,
   your stoccato, your imbroccato, your passado, your montanto,
   till they could all play very near or altogether as well as
   myself.  This done, say the enemy were forty thousand strong:
   thereabouts, and would challenge twenty of the enemy; they
   could not in their honour refuse the combat: well, we would
   kill them: challenge twenty more, kill them; twenty more,
   kill them; twenty more, kill them too; and thus would we kill
   every man his twenty a day, that's twenty score; twenty
   score, that's two hundred; two hundred a day, five days a
   thousand: forty thousand; forty times five, five times forty,
   two hundred days kills them all, by computation, and this
   will I venture my life to perform: provided there be no
   treason practised upon us.

   LOR. JU.  Why, are you so sure of your hand at all times?

   BOB.  Tut, never mistrust, upon my soul.

   LOR. JU.  Mass, I would not stand in Signior Giuliano's state,
   then, an you meet him, for the wealth of Florence.

   BOB.  Why Signior, by Jesu, if he were here now, I would not
   draw my weapon on him, let this gentleman do his mind, but I
   will bastinado him (by heaven) an ever I meet him.


   MAT.  Faith, and I'll have a fling at him.

   LOR. JU.  Look, yonder he goes, I think.

   GIU.  'Sblood, what luck have I, I cannot meet with these
   bragging rascals.

   BOB.  It's not he: is it?

   LOR. JU.  Yes, faith, it is he.

   MAT.  I'll be hang'd then if that were he.

   LOR. JU.  Before God, it was he: you make me swear.

   STEP.  Upon my salvation, it was he.

   BOB.  Well, had I thought it had been he, he could not have
   gone so, but I cannot be induced to believe it was he yet.


   GIU.  Oh, gallant, have I found you? draw to your tools;
   draw, or by God's will I'll thrash you.

   BOB.  Signior, hear me.

   GIU.  Draw your weapons then.

   BOB.  Signior, I never thought it till now: body of St.
   George, I have a warrant of the peace served on me even
   now, as I came along, by a water-bearer, this gentleman
   saw it, Signior Matheo.

   GIU.  The peace!  'Sblood, you will not draw?


   LOR. JU.  Hold, Signior, hold, under thy favour forbear.

   GIU.  Prate again as you like this, you whoreson cowardly
   rascal, you'll control the point, you? your consort he is
   gone; had he staid he had shared with you, in faith.


   BOB.  Well, gentlemen, bear witness, I was bound to the
   peace, by Jesu.

   LOR. JU.  Why, and though you were, sir, the law allows
   you to defend yourself; that's but a poor excuse.

   BOB.  I cannot tell; I never sustained the like disgrace
   (by heaven); sure I was struck with a planet then, for I
   had no power to touch my weapon.


   LOR. JU.  Ay, like enough; I have heard of many that have
   been beaten under a planet; go, get you to the surgeon's,
   'sblood, an these be your tricks, your passados, and your
   montantos, I'll none of them: O God, that this age should
   bring forth such creatures! come, cousin.

   STEP.  Mass, I'll have this cloak.

   LOR. JU.  God's will: it's Giuliano's.

   STEP.  Nay, but 'tis mine now, another might have ta'en it
   up as well as I, I'll wear it, so I will.

   LOR. JU.  How an he see it? he'll challenge it, assure yourself.

   STEP.  Ay, but he shall not have it; I'll say I bought it.

   LOR. JU.  Advise you, cousin, take heed he give not you as much.



   THO.  Now trust me, Prospero, you were much to blame,
   T' incense your brother and disturb the peace
   Of my poor house, for there be sentinels,
   That every minute watch to give alarms
   Of civil war, without adjection
   Of your assistance and occasion.

   PROS.  No harm done, brother, I warrant you: since there is no
   harm done, anger costs a man nothing: and a tall man is never his
   own man till he be angry, to keep his valour in obscurity, is to
   keep himself as it were in a cloak-bag: what's a musician unless
   he play? what's a tall man unless he fight? for indeed, all this
   my brother stands upon absolutely, and that made me fall in
   with him so resolutely.

   BIA.  Ay, but what harm might have come of it?

   PROS.  Might? so might the good warm clothes your husband
   wears be poison'd for any thing he knows, or the wholesome
   wine he drunk even now at the table.

   THO.  Now, God forbid: O me! now I remember,
   My wife drunk to me last; and changed the cup,
   And bade me wear this cursed suit to-day,
   See if God suffer murder undiscover'd!
   I feel me ill; give me some mithridate,
   Some mithridate and oil; good sister, fetch me,
   Oh, I am sick at heart: I burn, I burn;
   If you will save my life, go fetch it me.

   PROS.  Oh, strange humour, my very breath hath poison'd him.

   HES.  Good brother, be content, what do you mean?
   The strength of these extreme conceits will kill you.

   BIA.  Beshrew your heart-blood, brother Prospero,
   For putting such a toy into his head.

   PROS.  Is a fit simile a toy? will he be poison'd with a simile?
   Brother Thorello, what a strange and vain imagination is this?
   For shame be wiser, on my soul there's no such matter.

   THO.  Am I not sick? how am I then not poison'd?
   Am I not poison'd? how am I then so sick?

   BIA.  If you be sick, your own thoughts make you sick.

   PROS.  His jealousy is the poison he hath taken.


   MUS.  Signior Thorello, my master, Doctor Clement, salutes you,
   and desires to speak with you, with all speed possible.

   THO.  No time but now?  Well, I'll wait upon his worship,
   Piso, Cob, I'll seek them out, and set them sentinels till
   I return.  Piso, Cob, Piso.


   PROS.  Musco, this is rare, but how got'st thou this apparel of
   the Doctor's man?

   MUS.  Marry sir.  My youth would needs bestow the wine on me to
   hear some martial discourse; where I so marshall'd him, that I made
   him monstrous drunk, and because too much heat was the cause of his
   distemper, I stript him stark naked as he lay along asleep, and
   borrowed his suit to deliver this counterfeit message in, leaving a
   rusty armour and an old brown bill to watch him till my return:
   which shall be when I have pawn'd his apparel, and spent the money

   PROS.  Well, thou art a mad knave, Musco, his absence will be a
   good subject for more mirth: I pray thee return to thy young
   master Lorenzo, and will him to meet me and Hesperida at the
   Friary presently: for here, tell him, the house is so stored with
   jealousy, that there is no room for love to stand upright in: but
   I'll use such means she shall come thither, and that I think will
   meet best with his desires: Hie thee, good Musco.

   MUS.  I go, sir.



   THO.  Ho, Piso, Cob, where are these villains, trow?
   Oh, art thou there?  Piso, hark thee here:
   Mark what I say to thee, I must go forth;
   Be careful of thy promise, keep good watch,
   Note every gallant and observe him well,
   That enters in my absence to thy mistress;
   If she would shew him rooms, the jest is stale,
   Follow them, Piso, or else hang on him,
   And let him not go after, mark their looks;
   Note if she offer but to see his band,
   Or any other amorous toy about him,
   But praise his leg, or foot, or if she say,
   The day is hot, and bid him feel her hand,
   How hot it is, oh, that's a monstrous thing:
   Note me all this, sweet Piso; mark their sighs,
   And if they do but whisper, break them off,
   I'll bear thee out in it: wilt thou do this?
   Wilt thou be true, sweet Piso?

   PIS.  Most true, sir.

   THO.  Thanks, gentle Piso: where is Cob? now: Cob?


   BIA.  He's ever calling for Cob, I wonder how he employs Cob so.

   PROS.  Indeed, sister, to ask how he employs Cob is a necessary
   question for you that are his wife, and a thing not very easy for
   you to be satisfied in: but this I'll assure you, Cob's wife is
   an excellent bawd indeed, and oftentimes your husband haunts her
   house, marry, to what end I cannot altogether accuse him, imagine
   you what you think convenient: but I have known fair hides have
   foul hearts ere now, I can tell you.

   BIA.  Never said you truer than that, brother!  Piso, fetch
   your cloke, and go with me, I'll after him presently: I would
   to Christ I could take him there, i'faith.


   PROS.  So let them go: this may make sport anon, now, my fair
   sister Hesperida: ah, that you knew how happy a thing it were
   to be fair and beautiful!

   HES.  That toucheth not me, brother.

   PROS.  That's true: that's even the fault of it, for indeed
   beauty stands a woman in no stead, unless it procure her
   touching: but, sister, whether it touch you or no, it touches
   your beauties, and I am sure they will abide the touch, as
   they do not, a plague of all ceruse, say I! and it touches me
   too in part, though not in thee.  Well, there's a dear and
   respected friend of mine, sister, stands very strongly
   affected towards you, and hath vowed to inflame whole bonfires
   of zeal in his heart, in honour of your perfections.  I have
   already engaged my promise to bring you where you shall hear
   him confirm much more than I am able to lay down for him:
   Signior Lorenzo is the man: what say you, sister; shall I
   intreat so much favour of you for my friend, as to direct and
   attend you to his meeting? upon my soul, he loves you
   extremely, approve it, sweet Hesperida, will you?

   HES.  Faith, I had very little confidence in mine own constancy,
   if I durst not meet a man: but, brother Prospero, this motion of
   yours savours of an old knight adventurer's servant, methinks.

   PROS.  What's that, sister?

   HES.  Marry, of the squire.

   PROS.  No matter, Hesperida, if it did, I would be such an one
   for my friend, but say, will you go?

   HES.  Brother, I will, and bless my happy stars.


   CLEM.  Why, what villainy is this? my man gone on a false
   message, and run away when he has done, why, what trick is
   there in it, trow!  1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

   THO.  How! is my wife gone forth, where is she, sister!

   HES.  She's gone abroad with Piso.

   THO.  Abroad with Piso?  Oh, that villain dors me,
   He hath discovered all unto my wife,
   Beast that I was to trust him: whither went she?

   HES.  I know not, sir.

   PROS.  I'll tell you, brother, whither I suspect she's gone.

   THO.  Whither, for God's sake!

   PROS.  To Cob's house, I believe: but keep my counsel.

   THO.  I will, I will, to Cob's house! doth she haunt Cob's?
   She's gone a purpose now to cuckold me,
   With that lewd rascal, who to win her favour,
   Hath told her all.


   CLEM.  But did your mistress see my man bring him a message?

   PROS.  That we did, master Doctor.

   CLEM.  And whither went the knave?

   PROS.  To the tavern, I think, sir.

   CLEM.  What, did Thorello give him any thing to spend for the
   message he brought him? if he did I should commend my man's wit
   exceedingly if he would make himself drunk with the joy of it,
   farewell, lady, keep good rule, you two, I beseech you now: by
   God's --; marry, my man makes me laugh.


   PROS.  What a mad doctor is this! come, sister, let's away.



   MAT.  I wonder, Signior, what they will say of my going away, ha?

   BOB.  Why, what should they say? but as of a discreet gentleman.
   Quick, wary, respectful of natures,
   Fair lineaments, and that's all.

   MAT.  Why so, but what can they say of your beating?

   BOB.  A rude part, a touch with soft wood, a kind of gross
   battery used, laid on strongly: borne most patiently, and
   that's all.

   MAT.  Ay, but would any man have offered it in Venice?

   BOB.  Tut, I assure you no: you shall have there your Nobilis,
   your Gentilezza, come in bravely upon your reverse, stand you
   close, stand you firm, stand you fair, save your retricato with
   his left leg, come to the assaulto with the right, thrust with
   brave steel, defy your base wood.  But wherefore do I awake this
   remembrance?  I was bewitch'd, by Jesu: but I will be revenged.

   MAT.  Do you hear, is't not best to get a warrant and have him
   arrested, and brought before Doctor Clement?

   BOB.  It were not amiss, would we had it.


   MAT.  Why, here comes his man, let's speak to him.

   BOB.  Agreed, do you speak.

   MAT.  God save you, sir.

   MUS.  With all my heart, sir.

   MAT.  Sir, there is one Giuliano hath abused this gentleman and me,
   and we determine to make our amends by law, now if you would do us
   the favour to procure us a warrant, for his arrest, of your master,
   you shall be well considered, I assure i'faith, sir.

   MUS.  Sir, you know my service is my living, such favours as these
   gotten of my master is his only preferment, and therefore you must
   consider me as I may make benefit of my place.

   MAT.  How is that?

   MUS.  Faith, sir, the thing is extraordinary, and the gentleman
   may be of great account: yet be what he will, if you will lay me
   down five crowns in my hand, you shall have it, otherwise not.

   MAT.  How shall we do, Signior? you have no money.

   BOB.  Not a cross, by Jesu.

   MAT.  Nor I, before God, but two pence, left of my two shillings
   in the morning for wine and cakes, let's give him some pawn.

   BOB.  Pawn? we have none to the value of his demand.

   MAT.  O Lord, man, I'll pawn this jewel in my ear, and you may
   pawn your silk stockings, and pull up your boots, they will
   ne'er be mist.

   BOB.  Well, an there be no remedy, I'll step aside and put them

   MAT.  Do you hear, sir? we have no store of money at this time,
   but you shall have good pawns, look you, sir, this jewel and this
   gentleman's silk stockings, because we would have it dispatch'd
   ere we went to our chambers.

   MUS.  I am content, sir, I will get you the warrant presently.
   What's his name, say you, Giuliano?

   MAT.  Ay, ay, Giuliano.

   MUS.  What manner of man is he?

   MAT.  A tall, big man, sir; he goes in a cloak most commonly
   of silk russet, laid about with russet lace.

   MUS.  'Tis very good, sir.

   MAT.  Here, sir, here's my jewel.

   BOB.  And here are stockings.

   MUS.  Well, gentlemen, I'll procure this warrant presently, and
   appoint you a varlet of the city to serve it, if you'll be upon
   the Realto anon, the varlet shall meet you there.

   MAT.  Very good, sir, I wish no better.


   MUS.  This is rare, now will I go pawn this cloak of the
   doctor's man's at the broker's for a varlet's suit, and be
   the varlet myself, and get either more pawns, or more money
   of Giuliano for my arrest.





   LOR. SE.  Oh, here it is, I am glad I have found it now.
   Ho! who is within here?


   TIB.  I am within, sir, what's your pleasure?

   LOR. SE.  To know who is within besides yourself.

   TIB.  Why, sir, you are no constable, I hope?

   LOR. SE.  Oh, fear you the constable? then I doubt not,
   You have some guests within deserve that fear;
   I'll fetch him straight.

   TIB.  O' God's name, sir.

   LOR. SE.  Go to, tell me is not the young Lorenzo here?

   TIB.  Young Lorenzo, I saw none such, sir, of mine honesty.

   LOR. SE.  Go to, your honesty flies too lightly from you:
   There's no way but fetch the constable.

   TIB.  The constable, the man is mad, I think.


   PISO.  Ho, who keeps house here?

   LOR. SE.  Oh, this is the female copes-mate of my son.
   Now shall I meet him straight.

   BIA.  Knock, Piso, pray thee.

   PIS.  Ho, good wife.


   TIB.  Why, what's the matter with you?

   BIA.  Why, woman, grieves it you to ope your door?
   Belike you get something to keep it shut.

   TIB.  What mean these questions, pray ye?

   BIA.  So strange you make it! is not Thorello, my tried
   husband, here?

   LOR. SE.  Her husband?

   TIB.  I hope he needs not be tried here.

   BIA.  No, dame: he doth it not for need but pleasure.

   TIB.  Neither for need nor pleasure is he here.

   LOR. SE.  This is but a device to balk me withal;
   Soft, who's this?


   BIA.  Oh, sir, have I forestall'd your honest market?
   Found your close walks? you stand amazed now, do you?
   I'faith (I am glad) I have smoked you yet at last;
   What's your jewel, trow?  In: come, let's see her;
   Fetch forth your housewife, dame; if she be fairer
   In any honest judgment than myself,
   I'll be content with it: but she is change,
   She feeds you fat; she soothes your appetite,
   And you are well: your wife, an honest woman,
   Is meat twice sod to you, sir; Oh, you treachour.

   LOR. SE.  She cannot counterfeit this palpably.

   THO.  Out on thee, more than strumpet's impudency,
   Steal'st thou thus to thy haunts? and have I taken
   Thy bawd and thee, and thy companion,
   This hoary-headed letcher, this old goat,
   Close at your villainy, and would'st thou 'scuse it,
   With this stale harlot's jest, accusing me?
   Oh, old incontinent, dost thou not shame,
   When all thy powers in chastity are spent,
   To have a mind so hot? and to entice
   And feed the enticements of a lustful woman?

   BIA.  Out, I defy thee, I, dissembling wretch?

   THO.  Defy me, strumpet? ask thy pander here,
   Can he deny it? or that wicked elder.

   LOR. SE.  Why, hear you, Signior?

   THO.  Tut, tut, never speak,
   Thy guilty conscience will discover thee.

   LOR. SE.  What lunacy is this that haunts this man?


   GIU.  Oh, sister, did you see my cloak?

   BIA.  Not I, I see none.

   GIU.  God's life, I have lost it then, saw you Hesperida?

   THO.  Hesperida?  Is she not at home?

   GIU.  No, she is gone abroad, and nobody can tell me of it
   at home.


   THO.  O heaven! abroad? what light! a harlot too!
   Why? why? hark you, hath she, hath she not a brother?
   A brother's house to keep, to look unto?
   But she must fling abroad, my wife hath spoil'd her,
   She takes right after her, she does, she does,
   Well, you goody bawd and --
   That make your husband such a hoddy-doddy;
   And you, young apple squire, and old cuckold-maker,
   I'll have you every one before the Doctor,
   Nay, you shall answer it, I charge you go.

   LOR. SE.  Marry, with all my heart, I'll go willingly:
   how have I wrong'd myself in coming here.

   BIA.  Go with thee?  I'll go with thee to thy shame,
   I warrant thee.

   COB.  Why, what's the matter? what's here to do?

   THO.  What, Cob, art thou here? oh, I am abused,
   And in thy house, was never man so wrong'd.

   COB.  'Slid, in my house? who wrong'd you in my house?

   THO.  Marry, young lust in old, and old in young here,
   Thy wife's their bawd, here have I taken them.

   COB.  Do you hear? did I not charge you keep your doors shut
   here, and do you let them lie open for all comers, do you


   LOR. SE.  Friend, have patience; if she have done wrong in
   this, let her answer it afore the Magistrate.

   COB.  Ay, come, you shall go afore the Doctor.

   TIB.  Nay, I will go, I'll see an you may be allowed to beat
   your poor wife thus at every cuckoldly knave's pleasure, the
   devil and the pox take you all for me: why do you not go now?

   THO.  A bitter quean, come, we'll have you tamed.



   MUS.  Well, of all my disguises yet, now am I most like myself,
   being in this varlet's suit, a man of my present profession
   never counterfeits till he lay hold upon a debtor, and says he
   rests him, for then he brings him to all manner of unrest.
   A kind of little kings we are, bearing the diminutive of a
   mace, made like a young artichoke, that always carries pepper
   and salt in itself, well, I know not what danger I undergo by
   this exploit, pray God I come well off.


   MAT.  See, I think yonder is the varlet.

   BOB.  Let's go in quest of him.

   MAT.  God save you, friend, are not you here by the appointment
   of Doctor Clement's man?

   MUS.  Yes, an't please you, sir; he told me two gentlemen had
   will'd him to procure an arrest upon one Signior Giuliano by a
   warrant from his master, which I have about me.

   MAT.  It is honestly done of you both; and see where he comes
   you must arrest; upon him, for God's sake, before he be 'ware.

   BOB.  Bear back, Matheo!


   MUS.  Signior Giuliano, I arrest you, sir, in the Duke's name.

   STEP.  Signior Giuliano! am I Signior Giuliano?  I am one Signior
   Stephano, I tell you, and you do not well, by God's lid, to arrest
   me, I tell you truly; I am not in your master's books, I would you
   should well know; ay, and a plague of God on you for making me
   afraid thus.

   MUS.  Why, how are you deceived, gentlemen?

   BOB.  He wears such a cloak, and that deceived us,
   But see, here a comes, officer, this is he.


   GIU.  Why, how now, signior gull: are you a turn'd filcher of
   late? come, deliver my cloak.

   STEP.  Your cloak, sir?  I bought it even now in the market.

   MUS.  Signior Giuliano, I must arrest you, sir.

   GIU.  Arrest me, sir, at whose suit?

   MUS.  At these two gentlemen's.

   GIU.  I obey thee, varlet; but for these villains --

   MUS.  Keep the peace, I charge you, sir, in the Duke's name,

   GIU.  What's the matter, varlet?

   MUS.  You must go before master Doctor Clement, sir, to
   answer what these gentlemen will object against you, hark
   you, sir, I will use you kindly.

   MAT.  We'll be even with you, sir, come, Signior Bobadilla,
   we'll go before and prepare the Doctor: varlet, look to him.


   BOB.  The varlet is a tall man, by Jesu.

   GIU.  Away, you rascals, Signior, I shall have my cloak.

   STEP.  Your cloak?  I say once again, I bought it, and I'll
   keep it.

   GIU.  You will keep it?

   STEP.  Ay, that I will.

   GIU.  Varlet, stay, here's thy fee, arrest him.

   MUS.  Signior Stephano, I arrest you.

   STEP.  Arrest me! there, take your cloak: I'll none of it.

   GIU.  Nay, that shall not serve your turn, varlet, bring him away,
   I'll go with thee now to the Doctor's, and carry him along.

   STEP.  Why, is not here your cloak? what would you have?

   GIU.  I care not for that.

   MUS.  I pray you, sir.

   GIU.  Never talk of it; I will have him answer it.

   MUS.  Well, sir, then I'll leave you, I'll take this gentleman's
   word for his appearance, as I have done yours.

   GIU.  Tut, I'll have no words taken, bring him along to answer it.

   MUS.  Good sir, I pity the gentleman's case, here's your money

   GIU.  God's bread, tell not me of my money, bring him away,
   I say.

   MUS.  I warrant you, he will go with you of himself.

   GIU.  Yet more ado?

   MUS.  I have made a fair mash of it.

   STEP.  Must I go?



   CLEM.  Nay, but stay, stay, give me leave; my chair, sirrah;
   you, Signior Lorenzo, say you went thither to meet your son.

   LOR. SE.  Ay, sir.

   CLEM.  But who directed you thither?

   LOR. SE.  That did my man, sir.

   CLEM.  Where is he?

   LOR. SE.  Nay, I know not now, I left him with your clerk,
   And appointed him to stay here for me.

   CLEM.  About what time was this?

   LOR. SE.  Marry, between one and two, as I take it.

   CLEM.  So, what time came my man with the message to you,
   Signior Thorello?

   THO.  After two, sir.

   CLEM.  Very good, but, lady, how that you were at Cob's, ha?

   BIA.  An't please you, sir, I'll tell you: my brother Prospero
   told me that Cob's house was a suspected place.

   CLEM.  So it appears, methinks; but on.

   BIA.  And that my husband used thither daily.

   CLEM.  No matter, so he use himself well.

   BIA.  True, sir, but you know what grows by such haunts

   CLEM.  Ay, rank fruits of a jealous brain, lady: but did you
   find your husband there in that case, as you suspected?

   THO.  I found her there, sir.

   CLEM.  Did you so? that alters the case; who gave you knowledge
   of your wife's being there?

   THO.  Marry, that did my brother Prospero.

   CLEM.  How, Prospero first tell her, then tell you after?
   Where is Prospero?

   THO.  Gone with my sister, sir, I know not whither.

   CLEM.  Why, this is a mere trick, a device; you are gulled
   in this most grossly: alas, poor wench, wert thou beaten
   for this? how now, sirrah, what's the matter?


   SER.  Sir, there's a gentleman in the court without desires
   to speak with your worship.

   CLEM.  A gentleman? what's he?

   SER.  A soldier, sir, he sayeth.

   CLEM.  A soldier? fetch me my armour, my sword, quickly; a
   soldier speak with me, why, when, knaves? -- come on, come on,
   hold my cap there, so; give me my gorget, my sword; stand by,
   I will end your matters anon; let the soldier enter, now, sir,
   what have you to say to me?


   BOB.  By your worship's favour.

   CLEM.  Nay, keep out, sir, I know not your pretence, you
   send me word, sir, you are a soldier, why, sir, you shall
   be answered here, here be them have been amongst soldiers.
   Sir, your pleasure.

   BOB.  Faith, sir, so it is: this gentleman and myself have
   been most violently wronged by one Signior Giuliano: a gallant
   of the city here; and for my own part, I protest, being a man
   in no sort given to this filthy humour of quarrelling, he hath
   honour, disarmed me of my weapons, and beaten me in the open
   streets: when I not so much as once offered to resist him.

   CLEM.  Oh, God's precious, is this the soldier? here, take my
   armour quickly, 'twill make him swoon, I fear; he is not fit
   to look on't that will put up a blow.


   MAT.  An't please your worship, he was bound to the peace.

   CLEM.  Why, an he were, sir, his hands were not bound,
   were they?

   SER.  There is one of the varlets of the city has brought two
   gentlemen here upon arrest, sir.

   CLEM.  Bid him come in, set by the picture.
   Now, sir, what!  Signior Giuliano? is't you that are arrested
   at signior freshwater's suit here?

   GIU.  I'faith, master Doctor, and here's another brought at
   my suit.

   CLEM.  What are you, sir?

   STEP.  A gentleman, sir; oh, uncle?

   CLEM.  Uncle? who, Lorenzo?

   LOR. SE.  Ay, sir.

   STEP.  God's my witness, my uncle, I am wrong'd here monstrously;
   he chargeth me with stealing of his cloak, and would I might
   never stir, if I did not find it in the street by chance.

   GIU.  Oh, did you find it now? you said you bought it erewhile.

   STEP.  And you said I stole it, nay, now my uncle is here I care

   CLEM.  Well, let this breathe awhile; you that have cause to
   complain there, stand forth; had you a warrant for this arrest?

   BOB.  Ay, an't please your worship.

   CLEM.  Nay, do not speak in passion so, where had you it?

   BOB.  Of your clerk, sir.

   CLEM.  That's well, an my clerk can make warrants, and my hand
   not at them; where is the warrant? varlet, have you it?

   MUS.  No, sir, your worship's man bid me do it for these
   gentlemen, and he would be my discharge.

   CLEM.  Why, Signior Giuliano, are you such a novice to be
   arrested and never see the warrant?

   GIU.  Why, sir, he did not arrest me.

   CLEM.  No? how then?

   GIU.  Marry, sir, he came to me and said he must arrest me,
   and he would use me kindly, and so forth.

   CLEM.  Oh, God's pity, was it so, sir? he must arrest you.
   Give me my long sword there; help me off, so; come on, sir
   varlet, I must cut off your legs, sirrah; nay, stand up,
   I'll use you kindly; I must cut off your legs, I say.

   MUS.  Oh, good sir, I beseech you, nay, good master Doctor.
   Oh, good sir.

   CLEM.  I must do it; there is no remedy;
   I must cut off your legs, sirrah.
   I must cut off your ears, you rascal, I must do it;
   I must cut off your nose, I must cut off your head.

   MUS.  Oh, for God's sake, good master Doctor.

   CLEM.  Well, rise; how dost thou now? dost thou feel thyself
   well? hast thou no harm?

   MUS.  No, I thank God, sir, and your good worship.

   CLEM.  Why so?  I said I must cut off thy legs, and I must cut
   off thy arms, and I must cut off thy head; but I did not do it
   so: you said you must arrest this gentleman, but you did not
   arrest him, you knave, you slave, you rogue, do you say you must
   arrest, sirrah? away with him to the jail, I'll teach you a
   trick for your must.

   MUS.  Good master Doctor, I beseech you be good to me.

   CLEM.  Marry o'God: away with him, I say.

   MUS.  Nay, 'sblood, before I go to prison, I'll put on my
   old brazen face, and disclaim in my vocation: I'll discover,
   that's flat, an I be committed, it shall be for the
   committing of more villainies than this, hang me an I lose
   the least grain of my fame.

   CLEM.  Why? when, knave? by God's marry, I'll clap thee by
   the heels too.

   MUS.  Hold, hold, I pray you.

   CLEM.  What's the matter? stay there.

   MUS.  Faith, sir, afore I go to this house of bondage, I have
   a case to unfold to your worship: which (that it may appear
   more plain unto your worship's view) I do thus first of all
   uncase, and appear in mine own proper nature, servant to this
   gentleman: and known by the name of Musco.

   LOR. SE.  Ha, Musco!

   STEP.  Oh, uncle, Musco has been with my cousin and I all
   this day.

   CLEM.  Did not I tell you there was some device?

   MUS.  Nay, good master Doctor, since I have laid myself thus
   open to your worship, now stand strong for me, till the progress
   of my tale be ended, and then if my wit do not deserve your
   countenance, 'slight, throw it on a dog, and let me go hang

   CLEM.  Body of me, a merry knave, give me a bowl of sack.
   Signior Lorenzo, I bespeak your patience in particular, marry,
   your ears in general, here, knave, Doctor Clement drinks to

   MUS.  I pledge master Doctor an't were a sea to the bottom.

   CLEM.  Fill his bowl for that, fill his bowl: so, now speak

   MUS.  Indeed, this is it will make a man speak freely.  But
   to the point, know then that I, Musco, (being somewhat more
   trusted of my master than reason required, and knowing his
   intent to Florence,) did assume the habit of a poor soldier in
   wants, and minding by some means to intercept his journey in
   the midway, 'twixt the grange and the city, I encountered him,
   where begging of him in the most accomplished and true garb,
   (as they term it) contrary to all expectation, he reclaimed me
   from that bad course of life; entertained me into his service,
   employed me in his business, possest me with his secrets, which
   I no sooner had received, but (seeking my young master, and
   finding him at this gentleman's house) I revealed all most
   amply: this done, by the device of Signior Prospero and him
   together, I returned (as the raven did to the ark) to mine old
   master again, told him he should find his son in what manner he
   knows, at one Cob's house, where indeed he never meant to come;
   now my master, he to maintain the jest, went thither, and left
   me with your worship's clerk, who, being of a most fine supple
   disposition, (as most of your clerks are) proffers me the wine,
   which I had the grace to accept very easily, and to the tavern
   we went: there after much ceremony, I made him drunk in
   kindness, stript him to his shirt, and leaving him in that cool
   vein, departed, frolick, courtier-like, having obtained a suit:
   which suit fitting me exceedingly well, I put on, and usurping
   your man's phrase and action, carried a message to Signior
   Thorello in your name; which message was merely devised but to
   procure his absence, while Signior Prospero might make a
   conveyance of Hesperida to my master.

   CLEM.  Stay, fill me the bowl again, here; 'twere pity of his
   life would not cherish such a spirit: I drink to thee, fill
   him wine, why, now do you perceive the trick of it?

   THO.  Ay, ay, perceive well we were all abused.

   LOR. SE.  Well, what remedy?

   CLEM.  Where is Lorenzo and Prospero, canst thou tell?

   MUS.  Ay, sir, they are at supper at the Mermaid, where I
   left your man.

   CLEM.  Sirrah, go warn them hither presently before me, and
   if the hour of your fellow's resurrection be come, bring him
   too.  But forward, forward, when thou has been at Thorello's.


   MUS.  Marry, sir, coming along the street, these two gentlemen
   meet me, and very strongly supposing me to be your worship's
   scribe, entreated me to procure them a warrant for the arrest
   of Signior Giuliano, I promised them, upon some pair of silk
   stockings or a jewel, or so, to do it, and to get a varlet of
   the city to serve it, which varlet I appointed should meet
   them upon the Realto at such an hour, they no sooner gone, but
   I, in a mere hope of more gain by Signior Giuliano, went to one
   livery for a varlet's suit, which here, with myself, I offer
   unto your worship's consideration.

   CLEM.  Well, give me thy hand;
   Proh. Superi ingenium magnum quis noscit Homerum.
   Illias aeternum si latuisset opus?
   I admire thee, I honour thee, and if thy master or any man here
   be angry with thee, I shall suspect his wit while I know him
   for it: do you hear, Signior Thorello, Signior Lorenzo, and the
   rest of my good friends, I pray you let me have peace when they
   come, I have sent for the two gallants and Hesperida, God's
   marry, I must have you, friends, how now? what noise is there?


   SER.  Sir, it is Peto is come home.

   CLEM.  Peto, bring him hither, bring him hither, what, how now,
   signior drunkard, in arms against me, ha? your reason, your
   reason for this.

   PET.  I beseech your worship to pardon me.

   CLEM.  Well, sirrah, tell him I do pardon him.

   PET.  Truly, sir, I did happen into bad company by chance,
   and they cast me in a sleep and stript me of all my clothes.

   CLEM.  Tut, this is not to the purpose touching your armour,
   what might your armour signify?

   PET.  Marry, sir, it hung in the room where they stript me, and
   I borrowed it of one of the drawers, now in the evening, to
   come home in, because I was loth to come through the street
   in my shirt.


   CLEM.  Well, disarm him, but it's no matter, let him stand by:
   who be these? oh, young gallants; welcome, welcome, and you,
   lady, nay, never scatter such amazed looks amongst us,
   Qui nil potest sperare desperet nihil.

   PROS.  Faith, master Doctor, that's even I, my hopes are small,
   and my despair shall be as little.  Brother, sister, brother,
   what, cloudy, cloudy? "and will no sunshine on these looks
   appear?" well, since there is such a tempest toward, I'll be
   the porpoise, I'll dance: wench, be of good cheer, thou hast a
   cloak for the rain yet, where is he?  'Sheart, how now, the
   picture of the prodigal, go to, I'll have the calf drest for
   you at my charges.

   LOR. SE.  Well, son Lorenzo, this day's work of yours hath much
   deceived my hopes, troubled my peace, and stretch'd my patience
   further than became the spirit of duty.

   CLEM.  Nay, God's pity, Signior Lorenzo, you shall urge it no
   more: come, since you are here, I'll have the disposing of all,
   but first, Signior Giuliano, at my request take your cloak again.

   GIU.  Well, sir, I am content.

   CLEM.  Stay, now let me see, oh signior snow-liver, I had almost
   forgotten him, and your Genius there, what, doth he suffer for a
   good conscience too? doth he bear his cross with patience?

   MUS.  Nay, they have scarce one cross between them both to bear.

   CLEM.  Why, dost thou know him? what is he? what is he?

   MUS.  Marry, search his pocket, sir, and he'll shew you he is an
   author, sir.

   CLEM.  Dic mihi musa virum: are you an author, sir? give me
   leave a little, come on, sir, I'll make verses with you now
   in honour of the gods and the goddesses for what you dare
   extempore; and now I begin.
   "Mount thee my Phlegon muse, and testify,
   How Saturn sitting in an ebon cloud,
   Disrobed his podex, white as ivory,
   And through the welkin thunder'd all aloud."
   There's for you, sir.

   PROS.  Oh, he writes not in that height of style.

   CLEM.  No: we'll come a step or two lower then.
   "From Catadupa and the banks of Nile,
   Where only breeds your monstrous crocodile,
   Now are we purposed for to fetch our style."

   PROS.  Oh, too far-fetch'd for him still, master Doctor.

   CLEM.  Ay, say you so? let's intreat a sight of his vein then.

   PROS.  Signior, master Doctor desires to see a sight of your
   vein, nay, you must not deny him.

   CLEM.  What, all this verse, body of me, he carries a whole
   realm; a commonwealth of paper in his hose, let's see some of
   his subjects.
   "Unto the boundless ocean of thy beauty,
   Runs this poor river, charg'd with streams of zeal,
   Returning thee the tribute of my duty:
   Which here my youth, my plaints, my love reveal."
   Good! is this your own invention?

   MAT.  No, sir, I translated that out of a book, called

   CLEM.  Oh, but I would see some of your own, some of your own.

   MAT.  Sir, here's the beginning of a sonnet I made to my

   CLEM.  That, that: who? to Madonna Hesperida, is she your

   PROS.  It pleaseth him to call her so, sir.

   CLEM.  "In summer time, when Phoebus' golden rays."
   You translated this too, did you not?

   PROS.  No, this is invention; he found it in a ballad.

   MAT.  Faith sir, I had most of the conceit of it out of a
   ballad indeed.

   CLEM.  Conceit, fetch me a couple of torches, sirrah,
   I may see the conceit: quickly! it's very dark!

   GIU.  Call you this poetry?

   LOR. JU.  Poetry? nay, then call blasphemy, religion;
   Call devils, angels; and sin, piety:
   Let all things be preposterously transchanged.

   LOR. SE.  Why, how now, son! what are you startled now?
   Hath the brize prick'd you, ha? go to; you see
   How abjectly your poetry is rank'd in general opinion.

   LOR. JU.  Opinion, O God, let gross opinion sink and be damn'd
   As deep as Barathrum,
   If it may stand with your most wish'd content,
   I can refell opinion and approve
   The state of poesy, such as it is,
   Blessed, eternal, and most true divine:
   Indeed, if you will look on Poesy
   As she appears in many, poor and lame,
   Patch'd up in remnants and old worn rags,
   Half starved for want of her peculiar food:
   Sacred invention, then I must confirm
   Both your conceit and censure of her merit,
   But view her in her glorious ornaments,
   Attired in the majesty of art,
   Set high in spirit, with the precious taste
   Of sweet philosophy, and which is most,
   Crown'd with the rich traditions of a soul
   That hates to have her dignity profaned
   With any relish of an earthly thought:
   Oh, then how proud a presence doth she bear.
   Then is she like herself, fit to be seen
   Of none but grave and consecrated eyes:
   Nor is it any blemish to her fame,
   That such lean, ignorant, and blasted wits,
   Such brainless gulls, should utter their stol'n wares
   With such applauses in our vulgar ears:
   Or that their slubber'd lines have current pass
   From the fat judgments of the multitude,
   But that this barren and infected age
   Should set no difference 'twixt these empty spirits
   And a true poet: than which reverend name
   Nothing can more adorn humanity.


   CLEM.  Ay, Lorenzo, but election is now governed altogether by
   the influence of humour, which, instead of those holy flames
   that should direct and light the soul to eternity, hurls forth
   nothing but smoke and congested vapours, that stifle her up, and
   bereave her of all sight and motion.  But she must have a store
   of hellebore given her to purge these gross obstructions: oh,
   that's well said, give me thy torch, come, lay this stuff
   together.  So, give fire! there, see, see, how our poet's glory
   shines brighter and brighter, still, still it increaseth, oh,
   now it's at the highest, and now it declines as fast: you may
   see, gallants, "sic transit gloria mundi."  Well now, my two
   signior outsides, stand forth, and lend me your large ears, to
   a sentence, to a sentence: first, you, Signior, shall this night
   to the cage, and so shall you, sir, from thence to-morrow morning,
   you, Signior, shall be carried to the market cross, and be there
   bound: and so shall you, sir, in a large motley coat, with a rod
   at your girdle; and you in an old suit of sackcloth, and the
   ashes of your papers (save the ashes, sirrah) shall mourn all day,
   and at night both together sing some ballad of repentance very
   and a soldier's life."  Sirrah bill-man, embrace you this torch,
   and light the gentlemen to their lodgings, and because we tender
   their safety, you shall watch them to-night, you are provided for
   the purpose, away, and look to your charge with an open eye,

   BOB.  Well, I am arm'd in soul against the worst of fortune.

   MAT.  Faith, so should I be, an I had slept on it.

   PET.  I am arm'd too, but I am not like to sleep on it.

   MUS.  Oh, how this pleaseth me.


   CLEM.  Now, Signior Thorello, Giuliano, Prospero, Biancha.

   STEP.  And not me, sir.

   CLEM.  Yes, and you, sir: I had lost a sheep an he had not
   bleated, I must have you all friends: but first a word with
   you, young gallant, and you, lady.

   GIU.  Well, brother Prospero, by this good light that shines
   here, I am loth to kindle fresh coals, but an you had come in
   my walk within these two hours I had given you that you should
   not have clawed off again in haste, by Jesus, I had done it, I
   am the arrant'st rogue that ever breathed else, but now beshrew
   my heart if I bear you any malice in the earth.

   PROS.  Faith, I did it but to hold up a jest, and help my sister
   to a husband, but, brother Thorello, and sister, you have a spice
   of the jealous yet, both of you, (in your hose, I mean,) come, do
   not dwell upon your anger so much, let's all be smooth foreheaded
   once again.

   THOR.  He plays upon my forehead, brother Giuliano, I pray you
   tell me one thing I shall ask you: is my forehead any thing
   rougher than it was wont to be?

   GIU.  Rougher? your forehead is smooth enough, man.

   THO.  Why should he then say, be smooth foreheaded,
   Unless he jested at the smoothness of it?
   And that may be, for horn is very smooth;
   So are my brows, by Jesu, smooth as horn!

   BIA.  Brother, had he no haunt thither, in good faith?

   PROS.  No, upon my soul.

   BIA.  Nay, then, sweet-heart: nay, I pray thee, be not angry,
   good faith, I'll never suspect thee any more, nay, kiss me,
   sweet muss.

   THO.  Tell me, Biancha, do not you play the woman with me.

   BIA.  What's that, sweet-heart?

   THO.  Dissemble.

   BIA.  Dissemble?

   THO.  Nay, do not turn away: but say i'faith was it not a
   match appointed 'twixt this old gentleman and you?

   BIA.  A match?

   THO.  Nay, if it were not, I do not care: do not weep, I pray
   thee, sweet Biancha, nay, so now! by Jesus, I am not jealous,
   but resolved I have the faithful'st wife in Italy.
   "For this I find, where jealousy is fed,
   Horns in the mind are worse than on the head.
   See what a drove of horns fly in the air,
   Wing'd with my cleansed and my credulous breath:
   Watch them, suspicious eyes, watch where they fall,
   See, see, on heads that think they have none at all.
   Oh, what a plenteous world of this will come,
   When air rains horns, all men be sure of some:

   CLEM.  Why that's well, come then: what say you, are all
   agreed? doth none stand out?

   PROS.  None but this gentleman: to whom in my own person I owe
   all duty and affection; but most seriously intreat pardon, for
   whatsoever hath past in these occurrants that might be contrary
   to his most desired content.

   LOR. SE.  Faith sir, it is a virtue that pursues
   Any save rude and uncomposed spirits,
   To make a fair construction, and indeed
   Not to stand off, when such respective means
   Invite a general content in all.

   CLEM.  Well, then I conjure you all here to put off all
   discontentment, first, you, Signior Lorenzo, your cares; you,
   and you, your jealousy; you, your anger, and you, your wit,
   sir; and for a peace-offering, here's one willing to be
   sacrificed upon this altar: say, do you approve my motion?

   PROS.  We do, I'll be mouth for all.

   CLEM.  Why, then I wish them all joy, and now, to make our
   evening happiness more full: this night you shall be all my
   guests: where we'll enjoy the very spirit of mirth, and carouse
   to the health of this heroic spirit, whom to honour the more I
   do invest in my own robes, desiring you two, Giuliano and
   Prospero, to be his supporters, the train to follow, myself
   will lead, ushered by my page here with this honourable verse --

   "Claudite jam rivos pueri sat prata biberunt."


   ABATE, cast down, subdue.

   ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance.

   ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast.

   ABRASE, smooth, blank.

   ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly).

   ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse.


   ACATER, caterer.

   ACATES, cates.

   ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive.

   ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting.  (The word was a fashionable
   iii. 4).

   ACCOST, draw near, approach.

   ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with.

   ACME, full maturity.

   ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province.

   ADJECTION, addition.

   ADMIRATION, astonishment.

   ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at.

   ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained.

   ADSCRIVE, subscribe.

   ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit.

   ADVANCE, lift.

   ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence.


   ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence.

   ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate.


   AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move.

   AFFECTED, disposed; beloved.

   AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced.

   AFFECTS, affections.

   AFFRONT, "give the --," face.

   AFFY, have confidence in; betroth.

   AFTER, after the manner of.

   AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of.

   AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon.

   AGNOMINATION.  See Paranomasie.

   AIERY, nest, brood.

   AIM, guess.

   ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek.


   ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition.

   ALMA-CANTARAS (astronomy), parallels of altitude.

   ALMAIN, name of a dance.

   ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope.

   ALONE, unequalled, without peer.

   ALUDELS, subliming pots.

   AMAZED, confused, perplexed.

   AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris.

   AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the
   siege of Ghent, 1458.

   AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice.

   AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities.

   AMUSED, bewildered, amazed.

   AN, if.

   ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body.

   ANDIRONS, fire-dogs.

   ANGEL, gold coin worth 10 shillings, stamped with the
   figure of the archangel Michael.

   ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare.

   ANSWER, return hit in fencing.

   ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon.

   ANTIC, like a buffoon.

   ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality
   it opposes.

   APOZEM, decoction.

   APPERIL, peril.

   APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander.

   APPLY, attach.

   APPREHEND, take into custody.

   APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate.

   APPROVE, prove, confirm.



   APTITUDE, suitableness.


   ARCHES, Court of Arches.


   ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks.

   ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver.

   token, proof.

   ARRIDE, please.


   assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights.

   ARTICLE, item.

   ARTIFICIALLY, artfully.

   ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation.

   ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for.

   ASSALTO (Italian), assault.

   ceremony of the hunting-field.

   ASSOIL, solve.

   ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of.

   ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a
   constant heat.

   ATONE, reconcile.

   ATTACH, attack, seize.

   AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence.


   AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration.

   AVOID, begone! get rid of.

   AWAY WITH, endure.

   AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum.

   BABION, baboon.

   BABY, doll.

   BACK-SIDE, back premises.

   BAFFLE, treat with contempt.


   BAIARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance.


   BALE (of dice), pair.

   BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid.

   BALLACE, ballast.

   BALLOO, game at ball.

   BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water
   in which other vessels are stood for heating.

   BANBURY, "brother of --," Puritan.

   BANDOG, dog tied or chained up.

   BANE, woe, ruin.

   BANQUET, a light repast; dessert.

   BARB, to clip gold.

   BARBEL, fresh-water fish.


   BARLEY-BREAK, game somewhat similar to base.

   BASE, game of prisoner's base.

   BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or

   BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye.

   BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners.

   bad characters were "carted."

   BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce.

   BATOON, baton, stick.

   BATTEN, feed, grow fat.

   BAWSON, badger.


   BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy.


   BEARWARD, bear leader.

   BEDPHERE.  See Phere.

   supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or
   "laths"; a stick used in making a bed.

   BEETLE, heavy mallet.

   begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown
   ("your house had been begged").

   BELL-MAN, night watchman.

   BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum.

   BERLINA, pillory.

   BESCUMBER, defile.

   BESLAVE, beslabber.

   BESOGNO, beggar.

   BESPAWLE, bespatter.

   BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary.

   BEVER, drinking.


   BEWRAY, reveal, make known.

   BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle.

   BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a
   supposed antidote to poison.

   BID-STAND, highwayman.


   BILIVE (belive), with haste.

   BILK, nothing, empty talk.

   BILL, kind of pike.

   BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick.

   BIRDING, thieving.

   BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot.

   BLANK, originally a small French coin.

   BLANK, white.

   BLANKET, toss in a blanket.

   BLAZE, outburst of violence.

   BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad.

   BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to
   good birth and breeding.

   BLIN, "withouten --," without ceasing.

   BLOW, puff up.

   "-- waiters."

   BLUSHET, blushing one.

   BOB, jest, taunt.

   BOB, beat, thump.

   BODGE, measure.

   BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long
   pin with which the women fastened up their hair.

   BOLT, roll (of material).



   BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches.

   -- not always used in compliment.

   BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk.

   BOOKHOLDER, prompter.


   BORACHIO, bottle made of skin.

   BORDELLO, brothel.

   BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through.

   BOTTLE (of hay), bundle, truss.

   BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel.

   BOURD, jest.

   BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner

   BOW-POT, flower vase or pot.

   (See Nares).


   BRACH, bitch.

   BRADAMANTE, a heroine in "Orlando Furioso."

   BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in

   BRAKE, frame for confining a horse's feet while being
   shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap.

   BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting
   from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford).

   BRANDISH, flourish of weapon.

   BRASH, brace.

   BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech.


   BRAVERIES, gallants.

   BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel.

   BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer.

   BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon.

   BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise.

   BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of.

   BREND, burn.

   BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast.

   BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve.

   BRISK, smartly dressed.

   BRIZE, breese, gadfly.

   BROAD-SEAL, state seal.

   BROCK, badger (term of contempt).

   BROKE, transact business as a broker.

   BROOK, endure, put up with.

   BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar.

   BRUIT, rumour.

   BUCK, wash.

   BUCKLE, bend.

   BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military
   and serjeants' coats, etc.

   BUFO, black tincture.

   BUGLE, long-shaped bead.

   BULLED, (?) bolled, swelled.

   BULLIONS, trunk hose.

   BULLY, term of familiar endearment.


   BURDEN, refrain, chorus.

   BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor.

   BURGULLION, braggadocio.


   BURROUGH, pledge, security.


   BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts.

   news.  (See Cunningham).

   provisions and liquors were stored.

   could be bought.

   BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence.

   BUZZARD, simpleton.

   BY AND BY, at once.

   importance; at the side.

   BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard.

   CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand.

   CALIVER, light kind of musket.

   CALLET, woman of ill repute.

   CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or
   serjeants-at-law (Gifford).


   CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave.

   CAMUSED, flat.

   CAN, knows.

   CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property.

   CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late.

   CANTER, sturdy beggar.

   borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term.

   CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction,

   CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes."

   value, worth.

   CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling.

   CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck.

   CARE, take care; object.

   CAROSH, coach, carriage.

   CARPET, table-cover.

   CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour.

   CARWHITCHET, quip, pun.

   CASAMATE, casemate, fortress.

   CASE, a pair.

   CASE, "in --," in condition.

   CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat.

   CAST, flight of hawks, couple.

   CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate.

   CAST, cashiered.

   CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume.

   CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon.

   CAT, structure used in sieges.

   CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede."

   CATASTROPHE, conclusion.

   CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer.

   CATES, dainties, provisions.

   CATSO, rogue, cheat.

   CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful.

   CENSURE, criticism; sentence.

   CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom.

   CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead.

   CESS, assess.


   CHAPMAN, retail dealer.

   CHARACTER, handwriting.

   CHARGE, expense.


   CHARMING, exercising magic power.

   CHARTEL, challenge.

   CHEAP, bargain, market.

   CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment.

   CHECK AT, aim reproof at.

   CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin.

   CHEVRIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable.

   CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler.

   CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day.

   CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail.

   CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy.

   CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold.

   CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste
   of evaporation.

   CIMICI, bugs.

   CINOPER, cinnabar.

   CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe.


   CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush;
   ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition;
   detail, particular.

   CITRONISE, turn citron colour.

   CITTERN, kind of guitar.

   for hair and dress.

   CIVIL, legal.

   CLAP, clack, chatter.

   CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar.

   movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show
   that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their

   CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance.

   CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble.

   CLEM, starve.

   CLICKET, latch.


   CLIMATE, country.

   CLOSE, secret, private; secretive.

   CLOSENESS, secrecy.

   CLOTH, arras, hangings.

   CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye.

   CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper.

   COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds.


   COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms.

   COAT-CARD, court-card.

   COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring.

   COB-SWAN, male swan.

   COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to
   be derived from turning on the tap that all might
   drink to the full of the flowing liquor.

   COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a
   of reproach for a woman.

   COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild.

   COCKER, pamper.

   COCKSCOMB, fool's cap.

   COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's
   gizzard, and to possess particular virtues.

   CODLING, softening by boiling.

   COFFIN, raised crust of a pie.

   COG, cheat, wheedle.

   COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado.

   COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley).

   COKES, fool, gull.

   COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly
   affected towards.

   COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts.

   COLLECTION, composure; deduction.

   COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh.

   COLLY, blacken.

   COLOUR, pretext.


   COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub.

   COME ABOUT, charge, turn round.

   COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread.

   COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant.

   COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie
   or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616).

   money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of
   the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the
   latter had to make money if he could.

   COMMUNICATE, share.


   COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything
   required for the perfecting or carrying out of
   a person or affair; accomplishment.

   COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution.

   COMPLIMENT, See Complement.

   COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments.

   COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract.

   COMPOSURE, composition.

   COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison.

   CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property
   had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries;
   Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the
   courtiers begged for it.


   CONCEIT, apprehend.

   CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived;
   possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well
   of an idea.

   CONCEIVE, understand.

   CONCENT, harmony, agreement.

   CONCLUDE, infer, prove.

   CONCOCT, assimilate, digest.

   CONDEN'T, probably conducted.

   CONDUCT, escort, conductor.

   CONEY-CATCH, cheat.

   CONFECT, sweetmeat.

   CONFER, compare.

   CONGIES, bows.

   CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence.

   CONSORT, company, concert.

   CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence.

   CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful.

   CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently.

   CONTEND, strive.

   CONTINENT, holding together.

   CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down.

   CONVENT, assembly, meeting.

   CONVERT, turn (oneself).

   CONVEY, transmit from one to another.

   CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict.

   have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and
   others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point."

   COPE-MAN, chapman.

   COPESMATE, companion.

   COPY (Lat. copia), abundance, copiousness.

   CORN ("powder --"), grain.

   COROLLARY, finishing part or touch.

   CORSIVE, corrosive.


   CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as "Coryat's

   COSSET, pet lamb, pet.

   COSTARD, head.

   COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger.

   COSTS, ribs.

   COTE, hut.

   COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by
   actors in Greek tragedy.

   COTQUEAN, hussy.

   COUNSEL, secret.

   COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing.

   COUNTER.  See Compter.

   COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play.


   COUNTERFEIT, false coin.

   COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture.

   COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point.

   part of his reversion," but this does not sound like
   short allowance or small receptacle.

   COURT-DOR, fool.

   COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail.

   COURTSHIP, courtliness.

   COVETISE, avarice.

   COWSHARD, cow dung.

   COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool.

   COY, shrink; disdain.

   COYSTREL, low varlet.

   COZEN, cheat.

   CRACK, lively young rogue, wag.

   CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief.

   CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find
   rhymes for a given word.

   CRANCH, craunch.

   CRANION, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a
   fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's

   CRIMP, game at cards.

   CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside.

   CRISPED, with curled or waved hair.

   CROP, gather, reap.

   CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring.  (See N.E.D.)

   CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped
   with a cross.

   CROSS AND PILE, heads and tails.

   CROSSLET, crucible.

   CROWD, fiddle.

   CRUDITIES, undigested matter.

   CRUMP, curl up.

   CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross.



   CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation.

   CUERPO, "in --," in undress.

   CULLICE, broth.

   CULLION, base fellow, coward.

   CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants.

   CULVERIN, kind of cannon.

   CUNNING, skill.

   CUNNING, skilful.

   CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller.

   CURE, care for.

   CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate,

   CURST, shrewish, mischievous.

   CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort.

   a large custard which formed part of a city feast
   and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped
   into it, and other like tricks were played.  (See

   CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work.

   a transparent material, and when black used for mourning.


   DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale.

   DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song.

   DAW, daunt.

   DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency.


   DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside.

   DEFALK, deduct, abate.

   DEFEND, forbid.

   DEGENEROUS, degenerate.

   DEGREES, steps.

   DELATE, accuse.


   DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth
   part of a sou.

   DEPART, part with.

   DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language.

   DESERT, reward.

   DESIGNMENT, design.

   DESPERATE, rash, reckless.

   DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against.

   DETERMINE, terminate.

   DETRACT, draw back, refuse.

   DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires,
   etc., puppet.

   DEVISE, exact in every particular.

   DEVISED, invented.

   DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls
   of perfumed paste.  (See Pomander.)


   DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular.

   DIGHT, dressed.


   DIMBLE, dingle, ravine.

   DIMENSUM, stated allowance.

   DISBASE, debase.

   DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between.

   DISCHARGE, settle for.

   DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system.

   DISCLAIM, renounce all part in.

   DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty.

   DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy.

   DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display.

   DISFAVOUR, disfigure.

   DISPARAGEMENT, legal term applied to the unfitness
   in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case
   of wards.

   DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for.

   DISPLAY, extend.

   DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip.

   DISPOSED, inclined to merriment.

   DISPOSURE, disposal.

   DISPRISE, depreciate.

   DISPUNCT, not punctilious.

   DISQUISITION, search.

   DISSOLVED, enervated by grief.

   DISTANCE, (?) proper measure.

   DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence.

   DISTASTE, render distasteful.

   DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour.

   DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation.

   DOG-BOLT, term of contempt.

   DOLE, given in dole, charity.

   DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces.

   DOOM, verdict, sentence.

   DOP, dip, low bow.

   DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler.


   DOSSER, pannier, basket.

   DOTES, endowments, qualities.

   DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool.

   DOUBLE, behave deceitfully.

   DOXY, wench, mistress.

   DRACHM, Greek silver coin.

   DRESS, groom, curry.

   DRESSING, coiffure.

   DRIFT, intention.

   DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot.

   DUCKING, punishment for minor offences.

   DUILL, grieve.

   DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody.

   DURINDANA, Orlando's sword.

   DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed.

   EAN, yean, bring forth young.

   EASINESS, readiness.

   EBOLITION, ebullition.

   EDGE, sword.

   EECH, eke.

   EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent.

   EKE, also, moreover.

   E-LA, highest note in the scale.

   EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand.


   EMMET, ant.

   ENGAGE, involve.

   ENGHLE.  See Ingle.

   ENGHLE, cajole; fondle.


   ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter.

   ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious.

   ENGROSS, monopolise.

   ENS, an existing thing, a substance.

   ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds.

   ENSURE, assure.

   ENTERTAIN, take into service.

   ENTREAT, plead.

   ENTREATY, entertainment.

   ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed.

   ENVOY, denouement, conclusion.

   ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium.

   EPHEMERIDES, calendars.

   EQUAL, just, impartial.

   ERECTION, elevation in esteem.

   ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly
   used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac.

   ERRANT, arrant.

   ESSENTIATE, become assimilated.

   ESTIMATION, esteem.

   ESTRICH, ostrich.

   ETHNIC, heathen.

   EURIPUS, flux and reflux.

   EVEN, just equable.

   EVENT, fate, issue.

   EVENT(ED), issue(d).

   EVERT, overturn.

   EXACUATE, sharpen.

   EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel.

   EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword.

   EXEMPLIFY, make an example of.

   EXEMPT, separate, exclude.

   EXEQUIES, obsequies.

   EXHALE, drag out.

   EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money.

   EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law,

   EXORNATION, ornament.

   EXPECT, wait.

   EXPIATE, terminate.

   EXPLICATE, explain, unfold.

   EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremeditated.

   EXTRACTION, essence.

   EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose.

   EXTRUDE, expel.

   EYE, "in --," in view.

   this name was infused, or a person who sold the same

   EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam.

   FACE, appearance.

   FACES ABOUT, military word of command.

   FACINOROUS, extremely wicked.

   FACKINGS, faith.

   FACT, deed, act, crime.


   FAECES, dregs.

   FAGIOLI, French beans.

   FAIN, forced, necessitated.

   FAITHFUL, believing.


   FALSIFY, feign (fencing term).

   FAME, report.

   FAMILIAR, attendant spirit.

   FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical.

   FARCE, stuff.

   FAR-FET.  See Fet.

   FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat.

   FAUCET, tapster.


   FAUTOR, partisan.

   FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon.

   FEAR(ED), affright(ed).

   FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action.

   FEAT, elegant, trim.

   FEE, "in --" by feudal obligation.

   FEIZE, beat, belabour.

   FELLOW, term of contempt.

   FENNEL, emblem of flattery.

   FERE, companion, fellow.

   FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible.

   FET, fetched.

   FETCH, trick.

   FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper.

   FEWMETS, dung.

   FICO, fig.

   FIGGUM, (?) jugglery.

   FIGMENT, fiction, invention.

   a madman.

   FIT, pay one out, punish.

   FITNESS, readiness.

   FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention.

   primero" (Gifford).

   FLAG, to fly low and waveringly.

   FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr.

   FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon.

   FLASKET, some kind of basket.

   FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind.

   FLAWN, custard.

   FLEA, catch fleas.

   FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively.

   FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite


   FLIGHT, light arrow.


   FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously.

   FLOWERS, pulverised substance.

   FLY, familiar spirit.

   FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which
   sets anything off to advantage.

   FOIST, cut-purse, sharper.

   FOND(LY), foolish(ly).

   FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which
   hung down on either side a horse to the ground.

   FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing.

   FOPPERY, foolery.


   FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from.


   FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery.

   FORESLOW, delay.

   FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell.

   FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion
   required to be worn upright.

   FORGED, fabricated.

   FORM, state formally.

   FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional.

   FORTHCOMING, produced when required.

   FOUNDER, disable with over-riding.

   FOURM, form, lair.

   FOX, sword.

   FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins
   were packed.

   FRAMPULL, peevish, sour-tempered.

   FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler.

   of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford).


   FREQUENT, full.

   FRICACE, rubbing.

   FRICATRICE, woman of low character.

   FRIPPERY, old clothes shop.

   FROCK, smock-frock.

   FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at a feast

   FRONTLESS, shameless.

   FROTED, rubbed.

   FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced.

   FRUMP, flout, sneer.

   FUCUS, dye.


   FULLAM, false dice.

   FULMART, polecat.

   FULSOME, foul, offensive.

   FURIBUND, raging, furious.

   when he was sworn into his office at Westminster

   GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time.

   GAPE, be eager after.

   GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant.



   GARDED, faced or trimmed.

   GARNISH, fee.

   Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom
   of dividing a deceased man's property equally among
   his sons (N.E.D.).

   GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings.

   GEANCE, jaunt, errand.

   GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair.

   GELID, frozen.

   GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals
   were thrown into the river.

   GENERAL, free, affable.

   GENIUS, attendant spirit.

   GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry,
   good breeding.

   GIB-CAT, tom-cat.

   GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war.

   GIGLOT, wanton.

   GIMBLET, gimlet.

   GING, gang.


   side glance.

   GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe.

   GLIDDER, glaze.

   GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory.

   GODWIT, bird of the snipe family.


   GOLL, hand.

   GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc.

   GOOD, sound in credit.

   GOOD-YEAR, good luck.

   GOOSE-TURD, colour of.  (See Turd).

   GORCROW, carrion crow.

   GORGET, neck armour.

   GOSSIP, godfather.

   a fool.

   GRANNAM, grandam.

   GRASS, (?) grease, fat.

   GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome.

   GRATIFY, give thanks to.

   GRATITUDE, gratuity.

   GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate.

   GRAVITY, dignity.

   GRAY, badger.

   GRICE, cub.

   GRIEF, grievance.

   GRIPE, vulture, griffin.

   GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of.

   GROAT, fourpence.

   GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of
   coarse silk.

   GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household.

   GROPE, handle, probe.

   GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments").

   GUARD, caution, heed.

   GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only.

   GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d.

   GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red.

   GULL, simpleton, dupe.

   GUST, taste.

   HAB NAB, by, on, chance.

   HABERGEON, coat of mail.

   HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild.

   HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe.


   HANDSEL, first money taken.

   sword was suspended.

   HAP, fortune, luck.

   HAPPILY, haply.

   HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness.

   HAPPY, rich.


   HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured.

   HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured
   with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of

   HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the
   coinage of tokens (q.v.).

   HARROT, herald.

   HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the
   "Family of Love."

   HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc.


   HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person.

   HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked.

   sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man.

   HEADBOROUGH, constable.


   HEARTEN, encourage.


   HECTIC, fever.

   HEDGE IN, include.

   HELM, upper part of a retort.

   HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron.


   HOBBY, nag.

   HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material,
   fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who
   imitated the movements of a skittish horse.

   HODDY-DODDY, fool.

   HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient
   term for leveret?  Gifford).

   HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists.

   HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent.

   HOOD-WINK'D, blindfolded.

   HORARY, hourly.

   HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble).

   shield on the thumb.


   HORSE-COURSER, horse-dealer.

   HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital.

   HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German
   tale which relates his buffooneries and knavish tricks.

   HUFF, hectoring, arrogance.

   HUFF IT, swagger.

   HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher.

   HUM, beer and spirits mixed together.

   HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar.

   HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist.

   of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both.

   HUMOURS, manners.

   HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the
   monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine
   with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry.

   HURTLESS, harmless.

   IDLE, useless, unprofitable.

   ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed.

   ILL-HABITED, unhealthy.

   ILLUSTRATE, illuminate.

   IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping.

   IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce.

   IMPAIR, impairment.

   IMPART, give money.

   IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part
   with his money.

   IMPEACH, damage.

   IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies.


   IMPOSITION, duty imposed by.

   IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control.

   IMPRESS, money in advance.

   IMPULSION, incitement.

   IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons
   with four dice.

   INCENSE, incite, stir up.

   INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing
   a substance to softness of wax.


   INCH-PIN, sweet-bread.

   INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity.


   INCUBEE, incubus.

   INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare.

   INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical.

   INDENT, enter into engagement.

   INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable.

   INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic.

   INDUCE, introduce.

   INDUE, supply.

   INEXORABLE, relentless.

   INFANTED, born, produced.

   INFLAME, augment charge.

   INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous;
   intelligent, talented.

   INGENUITY, ingenuousness.

   INGENUOUS, generous.

   INGINE.  See Engin.

   INGINER, engineer.  (See Enginer).

   INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion.

   INHABITABLE, uninhabitable.

   INJURY, insult, affront.

   IN-MATE, resident, indwelling.

   INNATE, natural.

   INNOCENT, simpleton.

   INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry.

   INQUISITION, inquiry.

   INSTANT, immediate.

   INSTRUMENT, legal document.

   INSURE, assure.

   INTEGRATE, complete, perfect.

   INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news.

   INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be
   occupied with.

   INTENDMENT, intention.

   INTENT, intention, wish.

   INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze.

   INTENTIVE, attentive.

   INTERESSED, implicated.

   INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave.

   INVINCIBLY, invisibly.

   INWARD, intimate.

   IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion
   of the body: (Gifford).

   JACK, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes

   JACK, key of a virginal.

   JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and

   JADE, befool.

   JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious.

   JERKING, lashing.

   JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp.

   JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or
   light comic act introduced at the end or during an
   interlude of a play.

   JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool.

   JOLL, jowl.

   JOLTHEAD, blockhead.

   JUMP, agree, tally.

   JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until
   he was forty-three.

   KELL, cocoon.

   KELLY, an alchemist.

   KEMB, comb.

   KEMIA, vessel for distillation.

   KIBE, chap, sore.

   KILDERKIN, small barrel.

   KILL, kiln.

   to one's nature.

   KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat.

   employed when what the speaker is just about to say is
   anticipated by another" (Gifford).

   KIT, fiddle.

   KNACK, snap, click.

   KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist.

   KNITTING CUP, marriage cup.

   KNOCKING, striking, weighty.

   canutus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design.

   KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened.

   LABOURED, wrought with labour and care.

   LADE, load(ed).

   LADING, load.

   LAID, plotted.


   LAP, fold.

   LAR, household god.

   LARD, garnish.

   LARGE, abundant.

   LARUM, alarum, call to arms.

   LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of
   various colours.

   LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly
   to extract some of it.

   LAVE, ladle, bale.


   LAXATIVE, loose.

   LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board.

   LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army.

   LEASING, lying.

   LEAVE, leave off, desist.

   a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning
   uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell);
   led horse; leeward, left.

   LEESE, lose.

   LEGS, "make --," do obeisance.

   LEIGER, resident representative.

   LEIGERITY, legerdemain.

   LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram.

   LENTER, slower.

   LET, hinder.

   LET, hindrance.

   another from his seat.  Hence used for any noisy
   riot (Halliwell).

   LEWD, ignorant.

   LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth.

   LIBERAL, ample.

   LIEGER, ledger, register.

   LIFT(ING), steal(ing); theft.

   LIGHT, alight.

   LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often.

   LIKE, please.

   LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing.

   LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound.

   LIMMER, vile, worthless.

   LIN, leave off.

   Line, "by --," by rule.

   LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked
   head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon.

   LIQUID, clear.

   LIST, listen, hark; like, please.

   LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc.

   LOGGET, small log, stick.


   LOSE, give over, desist from; waste.

   LOUTING, bowing, cringing.

   LUCULENT, bright of beauty.

   LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill.

   LURCH, rob, cheat.

   LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement.

   MACK, unmeaning expletive.

   MADGE-HOWLET or OWL, barn-owl.

   MAIM, hurt, injury.

   MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic
   term for "hand").

   MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to
   procure his release.

   MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting.

   MAKE, mate.


   MALLANDERS, disease of horses.

   MALT HORSE, dray horse.

   MAMMET, puppet.

   MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child.

   handling, administration.

   MANGO, slave-dealer.

   MANGONISE, polish up for sale.

   MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls.

   MANKIND, masculine, like a virago.

   MANKIND, humanity.

   MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.).

   MARCHPANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc.

   stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from
   view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her"
   (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226).

   MARLE, marvel.


   MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name.

   MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy =
   St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.).

   MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily.

   MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt.

   MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text
   according to Hebrew tradition.

   MASS, abb. for master.

   MAUND, beg.

   MAUTHER, girl, maid.

   MEAN, moderation.

   MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one.

   or entertainment.

   MEATH, metheglin.

   MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar.

   MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general
   resort for business and amusement.

   MEET WITH, even with.

   MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach.

   MENSTRUE, solvent.

   MERCAT, market.

   MERD, excrement.

   MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated.

   MESS, party of four.

   METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient
   was honey.

   METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy.

   MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between.

   MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate.

   MILE-END, training-ground of the city.

   MINE-MEN, sappers.

   MINION, form of cannon.


   MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous
   articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various

   MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley.

   MISCONCEIT, misconception.

   MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding.

   MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake.

   MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison.

   MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence.

   MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, commonplace.

   MOMENT, force or influence of value.

   MONTANTO, upward stroke.

   MONTH'S MIND, violent desire.

   MOORISH, like a moor or waste.

   MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton.

   certain personages were represented.

   MORTALITY, death.

   MORT-MAL, old sore, gangrene.

   MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk.

   MOTHER, Hysterica passio.

   MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show;
   "one of the small figures on the face of a large
   clock which was moved by the vibration of the
   pendulum" (Whalley).

   MOTION, suggest, propose.

   MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence
   used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool.

   MOTTE, motto.

   a quartette.

   MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain.

   MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity.

   MUCKINDER, handkerchief.

   formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster

   MULLETS, small pincers.

   MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence.

   MUN, must.

   MUREY, dark crimson red.


   MUSE, wonder.

   MUSICAL, in harmony.

   MUSS, mouse; scramble.

   MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought
   from the Indies."

   MYSTERY, art, trade, profession.

   very utmost.

   NATIVE, natural.

   NEAT, cattle.

   NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty.

   NEATLY, neatly finished.

   NEATNESS, elegance.

   NEIS, nose, scent.

   NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist.

   NEUFT, newt.

   NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person.

   NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous.

   NICENESS, fastidiousness.

   meaning uncertain.

   exactly hit on, hit off.

   NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s. 8d.

   NOCENT, harmful.

   NIL, not will.

   NOISE, company of musicians.

   NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia.

   NONES, nonce.

   NOTABLE, egregious.

   NOTE, sign, token.


   NOWT-HEAD, blockhead.

   NUMBER, rhythm.

   NUPSON, oaf, simpleton.

   OADE, woad.

   OBARNI, preparation of mead.

   OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose.

   OBLATRANT, barking, railing.

   OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive.

   OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service.

   OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious.

   OBSERVE, show deference, respect.

   OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another.

   OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition."

   OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous.

   OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied.

   cheating" (Nares).

   OMINOUS, deadly, fatal.


   ONLY, pre-eminent, special.

   OPEN, make public; expound.

   OPPILATION, obstruction.

   OPPONE, oppose.

   OPPOSITE, antagonist.

   OPPRESS, suppress.

   ORIGINOUS, native.

   ORT, remnant, scrap.

   not at one with each other.

   OUTCRY, sale by auction.

   OUTRECUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption.

   OUTSPEAK, speak more than.

   OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play.

   OWLSPIEGEL.  See Howleglass.

   when about to make a proclamation.


   PAD, highway.

   PAD-HORSE, road-horse.

   PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips
   of different colour and material.

   PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking.

   PAINT, blush.

   PALINODE, ode of recantation.

   PALL, weaken, dim, make stale.

   PALM, triumph.

   PAN, skirt of dress or coat.

   PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle.

   PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers.

   court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc.

   PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper.

   PARAMENTOS, fine trappings.

   PARANOMASIE, a play upon words.

   PARANTORY, (?) peremptory.

   PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article.

   PARCEL, part, partly.

   PARCEL-POET, poetaster.

   PARERGA, subordinate matters.

   PARGET, to paint or plaster the face.

   PARLE, parley.

   PARLOUS, clever, shrewd.

   PART, apportion.

   PARTAKE, participate in.

   PARTED, endowed, talented.

   PARTICULAR, individual person.

   PARTIZAN, kind of halberd.

   PARTRICH, partridge.

   PARTS, qualities, endowments.

   PASH, dash, smash.

   PASS, care, trouble oneself.

   PASSADO, fencing term: a thrust.

   PASSAGE, game at dice.

   PASSINGLY, exceedingly.

   PASSION, effect caused by external agency.


   variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco.

   PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling
   beggars or gipsies.


   PAUCA VERBA, few words.

   PAVIN, a stately dance.


   PECULIAR, individual, single.

   PEDANT, teacher of the languages.

   PEEL, baker's shovel.

   PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice.


   PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for
   continuous distillation.

   PENCIL, small tuft of hair.

   PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service.

   PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter,

   PERIMETER, circumference of a figure.

   PERIOD, limit, end.

   PERK, perk up.

   PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff
   now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants
   and other city officers" (Gifford).

   PERSPECTIVE, a view, scene or scenery; an optical device
   which gave a distortion to the picture unless seen from a
   particular point; a relief, modelled to produce an
   optical illusion.

   PERSPICIL, optic glass.

   PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure.

   PERSUADE, inculcate, commend.

   PERSWAY, mitigate.

   PERTINACY, pertinacity.

   PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle.


   PETITIONARY, supplicatory.


   PETULANT, pert, insolent.

   PHERE.  See Fere.


   PHRENETIC, madman.

   PICARDIL, stiff upright collar fastened on to the coat

   PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London.

   worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s.

   PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight

   PIED, variegated.

   at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and


   PILED, pilled, peeled, bald.

   PILL'D, polled, fleeced.

   PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person -- perhaps

   PINE, afflict, distress.


   PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense.

   PISMIRE, ant.

   PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s.

   PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight.

   PLAGUE, punishment, torment.

   PLAIN, lament.

   PLAIN SONG, simple melody.

   PLAISE, plaice.

   have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences.

   PLAUSIBLE, pleasing.

   PLAUSIBLY, approvingly.

   PLOT, plan.

   PLY, apply oneself to.

   POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring.

   POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular.

   POINTS, tagged laces or cords for fastening the breeches
   to the doublet.

   POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's
   points (q.v.).

   POISE, weigh, balance.


   POLITIC, politician.

   POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political.

   POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer.

   POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion.

   POMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the
   person to prevent infection, or for foppery.

   POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups.

   PONTIC, sour.

   POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace.

   POPULOUS, numerous.

   PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot.

   PORT, transport.

   PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over 3 or 4

   portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley).

   PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen.

   PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening.

   PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's

   POSSESS, inform, acquaint.

   POST AND PAIR, a game at cards.

   POSY, motto.  (See Poesie).

   POTCH, poach.

   POULT-FOOT, club-foot.

   POUNCE, claw, talon.

   PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot.

   PRACTISE, plot, conspire.

   PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent.

   PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling.

   PRECEDENT, record of proceedings.

   PRECEPT, warrant, summons.

   PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness.

   PREFER, recommend.

   PRESENCE, presence chamber.

   present time; actually.

   PRESS, force into service.

   PREST, ready.

   PRETEND, assert, allege.

   PREVENT, anticipate.

   PRICE, worth, excellence.

   PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and
   other languages.

   "-- away," make off with speed.

   PRIMERO, game of cards.

   PRINCOX, pert boy.


   PRISTINATE, former.

   PRIVATE, private interests.

   PRIVATE, privy, intimate.

   PROCLIVE, prone to.

   PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural.

   PRODIGY, monster.

   PRODUCED, prolonged.

   PROFESS, pretend.

   PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection"
   into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or

   PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly.

   PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular.

   PROPERTIES, stage necessaries.

   PROPERTY, duty; tool.

   PRORUMPED, burst out.

   fig. failure of personal credit, etc.

   PROVANT, soldier's allowance -- hence, of common make.

   PROVIDE, foresee.

   PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence.



   PUFF-WING, shoulder puff.

   PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior.

   PULCHRITUDE, beauty.

   PUMP, shoe.

   PUNGENT, piercing.

   PUNTO, point, hit.

   PURCEPT, precept, warrant.

   PURE, fine, capital, excellent.

   PURELY, perfectly, utterly.

   PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff.

   PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together
   with a string.

   PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted
   seminaries; warrant officer.

   PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness).


   PUT OFF, excuse, shift.


   QUACKSALVER, quack.

   QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever.

   QUAR, quarry.

   QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey.

   QUEAN, hussy, jade.

   QUEASY, hazardous, delicate.

   QUELL, kill, destroy.

   QUEST, request; inquiry.

   QUESTION, decision by force of arms.

   QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry.

   QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip.

   QUICK, the living.

   QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety.

   QUIRK, clever turn or trick.


   QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses.

   QUODLING, codling.

   QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck.

   QUOTE, take note, observe, write down.

   RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell).

   RAKE UP, cover over.

   RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc.

   RAPT, carry away.

   RAPT, enraptured.

   RASCAL, young or inferior deer.

   RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a
   boar with its tusk.

   RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman.

   RAVEN, devour.

   REACH, understand.

   REAL, regal.

   REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar.

   RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor.

   REDARGUE, confute.

   REDUCE, bring back.

   REED, rede, counsel, advice.

   REEL, run riot.

   REFEL, refute.

   REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers.

   REGIMENT, government.

   REGRESSION, return.



   RELISH, savour.

   REMNANT, scrap of quotation.

   REMORA, species of fish.

   RENDER, depict, exhibit, show.

   REPAIR, reinstate.

   REPETITION, recital, narration.

   REREMOUSE, bat.

   RESIANT, resident.

   RESIDENCE, sediment.

   RESOLUTION, judgment, decision.

   at ease.

   RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative.

   RESPECTIVELY, with reverence.

   RESPECTLESS, regardless.

   RESPIRE, exhale; inhale.

   RESPONSIBLE, correspondent.

   REST, musket-rest.

   last stake (from game of primero).

   REST, arrest.

   RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive.

   RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness).

   RETIRE, cause to retire.

   RETRICATO, fencing term.

   RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung.

   RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of
   which so much money is received.

   REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat.


   REVISE, reconsider a sentence.

   RHEUM, spleen, caprice.

   RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman.

   RID, destroy, do away with.

   RIFLING, raffling, dicing.

   unfit for currency.

   RISSE, risen, rose.

   RIVELLED, wrinkled.

   ROARER, swaggerer.

   ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind.

   ROCK, distaff.

   RODOMONTADO, braggadocio.

   ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond.

   (Nares); roundel.

   ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe.

   ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane.

   ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor.

   ROSES, rosettes.


   ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching
   almost or quite to the knees.

   ROUSE, carouse, bumper.

   ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at
   uncertain distance.

   ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly.


   RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger.

   RUG, coarse frieze.

   RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug.

   RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were
   then strewn.

   RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes.

   RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour.

   SACK, loose, flowing gown.

   SADLY, seriously, with gravity.

   SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness).

   SAFFI, bailiffs.

   ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals
   were executed.

   SAKER, small piece of ordnance.

   SALT, leap.

   SALT, lascivious.

   SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram.

   SARABAND, a slow dance.

   SATURNALS, began December 17.

   SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence.

   SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton.

   SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt.


   SAY, sample.

   SAY, assay, try.

   SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease.

   SCALLION, shalot, small onion.

   SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to
   Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief
   of Albania, with whom they had continual wars.  His
   romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford).

   SCAPE, escape.

   SCARAB, beetle.

   SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge.

   SCONCE, head.

   SCOPE, aim.

   SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish

   SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head.

   SCOUR, purge.

   SCOURSE, deal, swap.

   SCRATCHES, disease of horses.

   SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow.

   SCRUPLE, doubt.


   SEALED, stamped as genuine.

   SEAM-RENT, ragged.

   SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging.

   SEAR UP, close by searing, burning.

   SEARCED, sifted.

   SECRETARY, able to keep a secret.

   SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace.

   SECURE, confident.

   SEELIE, happy, blest.

   SEISIN, legal term: possession.

   SELLARY, lewd person.

   SEMBLABLY, similarly.

   SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary.

   SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling.

   SENSIBLY, perceptibly.

   SENSIVE, sensitive.

   SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material.

   SERENE, harmful dew of evening.

   SERICON, red tincture.

   SERVANT, lover.

   SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms.

   SESTERCE, Roman copper coin.

   SET, stake, wager.

   SET UP, drill.

   SETS, deep plaits of the ruff.

   SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought
   water for the hands of the guests.

   SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise.

   SHIFT, fraud, dodge.

   SHIFTER, cheat.

   SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock.

   SHOT, tavern reckoning.

   SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot
   (reckoning) for the rest.


   SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps
   somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss.

   SHOT-SHARKS, drawers.

   SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst.

   SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree.

   SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for
   proclamations, or to indicate his residence.

   SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment.

   SIGILLA, seal, mark.

   SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or
   Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc.

   SILLY, simple, harmless.

   SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true.

   SIMPLES, herbs.

   SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag
   is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert.

   SINGLE, weak, silly.

   SINGLE-MONEY, small change.

   SINGULAR, unique, supreme.

   SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement.

   SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindling.



   SKIRT, tail.

   SLEEK, smooth.

   SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.).

   SLICK, sleek, smooth.

   'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths.

   SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick.

   SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard.

   SLIPPERY, polished and shining.

   SLOPS, large loose breeches.

   SLOT, print of a stag's foot.


   SMELT, gull, simpleton.


   SNOTTERIE, filth.


   SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff,
   or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell).

   SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors.

   SOD, seethe.

   SOGGY, soaked, sodden.

   to the water for safety.

   SOL, sou.

   SOLDADOES, soldiers.

   SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action.

   SOOTH, flattery, cajolery.

   SOOTHE, flatter, humour.

   SOPHISTICATE, adulterate.

   SORT, company, party; rank, degree.

   SORT, suit, fit; select.

   SOUSE, ear.

   page 350).

   SOWTER, cobbler.

   SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus.

   SPAR, bar.

   SPEAK, make known, proclaim.

   SPECULATION, power of sight.

   SPED, to have fared well, prospered.

   SPEECE, species.

   SPIGHT, anger, rancour.

   SPINNER, spider.

   SPINSTRY, lewd person.

   SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house.

   SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions.

   SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood.

   SPRUNT, spruce.

   SPURGE, foam.

   SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s.


   STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating.

   STAIN, disparagement, disgrace.

   STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse.

   STALE, make cheap, common.

   STALK, approach stealthily or under cover.

   STALL, forestall.

   STANDARD, suit.

   STAPLE, market, emporium.

   STARK, downright.

   STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape.

   STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate.

   STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used
   by Pliny (Gifford).

   STAY, gag.

   STAY, await; detain.

   STICKLER, second or umpire.

   STIGMATISE, mark, brand.

   STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly).

   STINKARD, stinking fellow.

   STINT, stop.

   STIPTIC, astringent.

   STOCCATA, thrust in fencing.

   STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish.

   STOMACH, pride, valour.

   STOMACH, resent.

   STOOP, swoop down as a hawk.

   STOP, fill, stuff.

   STOPPLE, stopper.

   STOTE, stoat, weasel.

   STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow.

   STRAIGHT, straightway.

   to the thrust.

   STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar.

   STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour.

   STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts
   in the Strand.

   STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in

   STRIKE, balance (accounts).

   STRINGHALT, disease of horses.

   STROKER, smoother, flatterer.

   STROOK, p.p. of "strike."

   STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummel is glossed in dialect dicts.

   STUDIES, studious efforts.

   STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax

   SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft.

   SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device.

   SUBURB, connected with loose living.

   SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women.

   SUCK, extract money from.

   SUFFERANCE, suffering.

   SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage.

   SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when
   it was empty.

   SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous.

   SUPPLE, to make pliant.

   SURBATE, make sore with walking.

   SURCEASE, cease.

   SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence.

   SURVISE, peruse.

   SUSCITABILITY, excitability.

   SUSPECT, suspicion.

   SUSPEND, suspect.

   SUSPENDED, held over for the present.

   SUTLER, victualler.

   SWAD, clown, boor.

   SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes.

   SWINGE, beat.

   TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights
   and heralds.


   TABOR, small drum.

   TABRET, tabor.


   unscientific or dishonourable manner.

   TAKE IN, capture, subdue.

   TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you.

   TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow.

   TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency.

   TALL, stout, brave.

   TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the

   TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester.

   TARTAROUS, like a Tartar.


   TELL, count.

   TELL-TROTH, truth-teller.

   TEMPER, modify, soften.

   TENDER, show regard, care for, cherish; manifest.

   TENT, "take --," take heed.

   TERSE, swept and polished.

   TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one
   particular district or division of a country" (Gifford).

   TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d.

   THIRDBOROUGH, constable.

   THREAD, quality.

   THREAVES, droves.

   THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth.

   THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated.

   THRIFTILY, carefully.


   THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of
   being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress.

   TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe.

   TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon.

   TIGHTLY, promptly.

   TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity.

   TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable.

   TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed
   by alchemists to be transfusible into material things;
   an imparted characteristic or tendency.

   TINK, tinkle.


   TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal.

   TIRE, head-dress.

   TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey.

   TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume.

   TOD, fox.

   TOILED, worn out, harassed.

   TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small
   coin, when this was scarce.

   TONNELS, nostrils.

   amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people
   were out of work.

   TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument.

   TOUSE, pull, rend.

   at hand.

   TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt.

   TRACT, attraction.

   TRAIN, allure, entice.

   TRANSITORY, transmittable.

   TRANSLATE, transform.

   TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing
   a three) (Nares).

   TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor.

   TREEN, wooden.

   TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food.

   TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed.

   coat of arms, etc., without blazoning.

   TRIG, a spruce, dandified man.

   TRILL, trickle.

   TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing.


   TRITE, worn, shabby.

   TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate).

   TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief.

   TROLL, sing loudly.

   TROMP, trump, deceive.

   TROPE, figure of speech.

   TROW, think, believe, wonder.

   TROWLE, troll.

   TROWSES, breeches, drawers.

   TRUCHMAN, interpreter.

   TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer.

   TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along.

   TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for
   carts or coaches (Gifford).

   TRUNK, speaking-tube.

   TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches
   to the doublet.

   TUBICINE, trumpeter.

   TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the

   TUITION, guardianship.

   TUMBLER, a particular kind of dog so called from the
   mode of his hunting.

   TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches.

   TURD, excrement.

   TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.).

   TWIRE, peep, twinkle.

   TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery.

   TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room.

   ULENSPIEGEL.  See Howleglass.

   UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow.

   UMBRE, brown dye.

   UNBATED, unabated.

   UNBORED, (?) excessively bored.

   UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh.

   UNCOUTH, strange, unusual.

   UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the
   House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his

   UNEQUAL, unjust.

   UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at.

   UNFEARED, unaffrighted.

   UNHAPPILY, unfortunately.

   UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison.

   UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly).

   UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry).

   UNQUIT, undischarged.

   UNREADY, undressed.

   UNRUDE, rude to an extreme.

   UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe.

   UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the
   eyelids together with fine thread.

   UNTIMELY, unseasonably.

   UNVALUABLE, invaluable.

   UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach.

   in the Dutch fashion.

   UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song.

   URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator.

   URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog.

   USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the
   practical application of doctrine.


   USQUEBAUGH, whisky.

   USURE, usury.


   VAIL, bow, do homage.

   VAILS, tips, gratuities.

   VALL.  See Vail.

   VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag.

   in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed
   hector(ing), etc.

   VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace.

   VAUT, vault.

   VEER (naut.), pay out.

   VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour.

   VELLUTE, velvet.



   VENUE, bout (fencing term).

   VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner.


   VEX, agitate, torment.

   VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of
   machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford).

   it with a larger one.

   VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms.

   VINDICATE, avenge.

   VIRGE, wand, rod.

   VIRGINAL, old form of piano.

   VIRTUE, valour.

   VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily.

   VIZARD, mask.

   VOGUE, rumour, gossip.

   VOICE, vote.

   VOID, leave, quit.

   VOLARY, cage, aviary.

   term of tennis).

   VORLOFFE, furlough.

   WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his
   friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley).

   WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical


   WARD, a famous pirate.

   WARD, guard in fencing.

   WATCHET, pale, sky blue.

   WEAL, welfare.

   WEED, garment.

   WEFT, waif.


   WELKIN, sky.

   WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech.


   WELT, hem, border of fur.

   WHER, whether.


   tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment.

   WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings.

   WHIMSY, whim, "humour."

   WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly.

   WHIT, (?) a mere jot.

   WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs.

   WICKED, bad, clumsy.

   WICKER, pliant, agile.


   perquisites (of the office) which you are to share


   WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller.

   WISH, recommend.


   WITHOUT, beyond.

   WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever.

   WOOD, collection, lot.

   WOODCOCK, term of contempt.


   WORT, unfermented beer.

   WOUNDY, great, extreme.

   WREAK, revenge.

   WROUGHT, wrought upon.

   WUSSE, interjection.  (See Wiss).

   YEANLING, lamb, kid.

   ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief
   fool and mimicked his tricks.

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