HODGE HUFFLE, a cheater, his champion. NICK STUFF, the ladies' tailor.

PINNACIA STUFF, his wife.

TRUNDLE, a coachman.

BARNABY, a hired coachman.

STAGGERS, the smith, only talked on.
TREE, the sadler,

The SCENE, Barnet.

THE PROLOGUE.

OU are welcome, welcome all to the New Inn : Though the old house, we hope our cheer will win

Your acceptation: we have the same cook
Still, and the fat, who says, you shall not look
Long for your bill of fare, but every dish
Be serv'd in i the time, and to your wish:
If any thing be set to a wrong taste,

'Tis not the meat there, but the mouth's displaced,
Remove but that sick palate, all is well.
For this the secure dresser bade me tell,
Nothing more hurts just meetings, than a crowd;
Or, when the expectation's grown too loud:
That the nice stomach would have this or that,
And being ask'd, or urged, it knows not what:
When sharp or sweet, have been too much a feast,
And both outlived the palate of the guest.
Beware to bring such appetites to the stage,
They do confess a weak, sick, queasy age;
And a shrewd grudging too of ignorance,
When clothes and faces 'bove the men advance :
Hear for your health, then, but at any hand,
Before you judge, vouchsafe to understand,
Concoct, digest: if then, it do not hit,
Some are in a consumption of wit,

Deep, he dares say, he will not think, that all—
For hectics are not epidemical.

AM not pleased, indeed, you are in the right;

Nor is my house pleased, if my sign could speak,

The sign of the LIGHT HEART. There you may read it;

So may your master too, if he look on it.

A heart weigh'd with a feather, and outweigh'd too:
A brain-child of my own, and I am proud on't!
And if his worship think, here, to be melancholy,
In spite of me or my wit, he is deceived;

I will maintain the rebus against all humours,
And all complexions in the body of man,
That is my word, or in the isle of Britain!
Fer. You have reason, good mine host.
Host. Sir, I have rhyme too.

Whether it be by chance or art,
A heavy purse makes a light heart.

There 'tis exprest: first, by a purse of gold,
A heavy purse, and then two turtles, makes,"
A heart with a light stuck in it, a Light Heart
Old abbot Islip could not invent better,
Or prior Bolton with his bolt and ton.8

I am an inn-keeper, and know my grounds,
And study them; brain o' man! I study them.
I must have jovial guests to drive my ploughs,
And whistling boys to bring my harvest home,
Or I shall hear no flails thwack. Here, your master
And you have been this fortnight, drawing fleas
Out of my mats, and pounding them in cages
Cut out of cards, and those roped round with pack
thread

Drawn thorough birdlime, a fine subtility!

Or poring through a multiplying-glass,
Upon a captived crab-louse, or a cheese-mite
To be dissected, as the sports of nature,
With a neat Spanish needle! speculations
That do become the age, I do confess!

As measuring an ant's eggs with the silk-worm's,

7 Two turtles, makes.] The old term for mates. "The turtledoves have such love one to another, being makes, that when one of them is dead, the other will never after have any other make.” Book of notable Things. 1627.

8 Old abbot Islip could not invent better,

Or prior Bolton with his bolt and ton.] The reader may find in Camden's Remains, the rebus made use of by these ecclesiastics to express their names on the several buildings erected by them, or belonging to them. The bolt and ton, is a ton pierced through with an arrow, for which bolt was anciently used. WHAL.

One of "old abbot Islip's" conundrums was an eye with a slip of a tree! There is not much to be said for the ingenuity of either; but such was the wisdom of the times. Both these men, however, had other and better claims to the notice of posterity than those puerile devices, and Islip in particular (who was abbot of Westminster) is entitled to our commendation for the stand which he made against Wolsey in the height of his power, and the generous firmness with which he protected the proscribed Skelton, from his

resentment.

By a phantastic instrument of thread,

Shall give you their just difference to a hair!
Or else recovering of dead flies with crumbs,
Another quaint conclusion in the physics,

Which I have seen you busy at, through the key hole

But never had the fate to see a fly

Enter LOVEL.

Alive in your cups, or once heard, Drink, mine host! Or such a cheerful chirping charm come from you. Lov. What's that, what's that?

Fer. A buzzing of mine host

About a fly; a murmur that he has.

Host. Sir, I am telling your Stote here, monsieur
Ferret,

For that I hear's his name, and dare tell you, sir,
If you have a mind to be melancholy, and musty,
There's Footman's inn at the town's end, the stocks,
Or Carrier's place, at sign of the Broken Wain,
Mansions of state! take up your harbour there,
There are both flies and fleas, and all variety
Of vermin, for inspection or dissection.

Lov. We have set our rest up here, sir, in your
Heart.

Host. Sir, set your heart at rest, you shall not do it, Unless you can be jovial. Brain of man!

Be jovial first, and drink, and dance, and drink.
Your lodging here, and with your daily dumps,
Is a mere libel 'gain my house and me;

And, then, your scandalous commons

Lov. How, mine host!

Host. Sir, they do scandal me upon the road here.

A poor quotidian rack of mutton, roasted

Dry to be grated! and that driven down

With beer and butter-milk, mingled together,
Or clarified whey instead of claret !