It is against my freehold, my inheritance,
My Magna Charta, cor lætificat,

To drink such balderdash, or bonny-clabber!"
Give me good wine, or catholic, or christian,
Wine is the word that glads the heart of man:
And mine's the house of wine: Sack, says my bush,
Be merry, and drink sherry; that's my posie!
For I shall never joy in my light heart,

So long as I conceive a sullen guest,

Or any thing that's earthy.

Lov. Humorous host!

Host. I care not if I be.
Lov. But airy also!

Not to defraud you of your rights, or trench
Upon your privileges, or great charter,

For those are every hostler's language now,
Say, you were born beneath those smiling stars,
Have made you lord, and owner of the Heart,
Of the Light Heart in Barnet; suffer us,
Who are more saturnine, to enjoy the shade

9

bonny-clabber!] "We scorn," says Swift"We scorn, for want of talk, to jabber

Of parties, o'er our bonny-clabber."

The word also occurs in Ford, (as, indeed, it does in a hundred other writers,)

"The feasts, the manly stomachs,

The healths in usquebaugh, and bonny-clabber."

Upon which Mr. Weber remarks—“ I have not been able to discover what particular kind of liquor was thus denominated, never having met with the phrase before." Vol. ii. 53. Phrase call you it! He had not far to go for it, as the reader sees; but as it was not pointed out to him in the index to Shakspeare, or Reed's Old Plays, the discovery of the word in any other place never came within his scope of possibility. Let it not however be forgotten, that this wretched reviler of Jonson, who has devoted several pages to a stale repetition of abuse on the New Inn, could not discover a particular term in it, which must have stared him in the face if he had ever turned the first leaf of it!

Bonny-clabber, to which it is time to return, is sour buttermilk.

yet.

Of your round roof

Host. Sir, I keep no shades

Nor shelters, I, for either owls or rere-mice.

Enter FRANK.

Fer. He'll make you a bird of night, sir.

Host. Bless you child!—

You'll make your selves such.

[Aside to FRANK.

Lov. That your son, mine host?
Host. He's all the sons I have, sir.
Lov. Pretty boy!

Goes he to school?

Fer. O lord, sir, he prates Latin, An it were a parrot, or a play-boy. Lov. Thou

Commend'st him fitly!

Fer. To the pitch he flies, sir.

He'll tell you what is Latin for a looking-glass,
A beard-brush, rubber, or quick-warming pan.
Lov. What's that?

Fer. A wench, in the inn-phrase, is all these ;
A looking glass in her eye,

A beard-brush with her lips,

A rubber with her hand,

And a warming pan with her hips.

Host. This, in your scurril dialect: but my inn Knows no such language.

Fer. That's because, mine host,

You do profess the teaching him your self.

Host. Sir, I do teach him somewhat: by degrees,

And with a funnel, I make shift to fill

The narrow vessel; he is but yet a bottle.

Lov. O let him lose no time though.

Host. Sir, he does not.

Lov. And less his manners.

Host. I provide for those, too.

Come hither, Frank, speak to the gentleman

In Latin; he is melancholy say,

I long to see him merry, and so would treat him. Fra. Subtristis visu' es esse aliquantulùm patri, qui te lautè excipere, etiam ac tractare gestit.

Lov. Pulchrè.

Host. Tell him, I fear it bodes us some ill luck, His too reservedness.

Fra. Veretur pater, ne quid nobis mali ominis apportet iste nimis præclusus vultus.

Lov. Belle. A fine child!

You will not part with him, mine host?

Host. Who told you

I would not?

Lov. I but ask you.

Host. And I answer To whom? for what?

Lov. To me, to be my page.

Host. I know no mischief yet the child hath done, To deserve such a destiny.

Lov. Why?

Host. Go down, boy,

And get your breakfast. [Exeunt FRANK and
FERRET.]-Trust me, I had rather

Take a fair halter, wash my hands, and hang him
My self, make a clean riddance of him, than

Lov. What?

Host. Than damn him to that desperate course of life.

Lov. Call you that desperate, which by a line

Of institution, from our ancestors,

Hath been derived down to us, and received

In a succession, for the noblest way

Of breeding up our youth,' in letters, arms,

1

the noblest way

Of breeding up our youth, &c.] It is unnecessary to repeat what is advanced upon this subject in the Introduction to Massinger, (p. xxxviii.) but the following passage, which has a direct bear

Fair mien, discourses, civil exercise,
And all the blazon of a gentleman ?

Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence,
To move his body gracefuller, to speak
His language purer, or to tune his mind,
Or manners, more to the harmony of nature,
Than in these nurseries of nobility?

Host. Ay, that was when the nursery's self was noble,

And only virtue made it, not the market,

That titles were not vented at the drum,

Or common out-cry; goodness gave the greatness, And greatness worship: every house became

An academy of honour, and those parts

We see departed, in the practice now
Quite from the institution.

Lov. Why do you say so,

Or think so enviously? do they not still

Learn there the Centaur's skill, the art of Thrace,
To ride? or Pollux' mystery, to fence?

The Pyrrhic gestures, both to dance and spring
In armour, to be active for the wars?

To study figures, numbers, and proportions,
May yield them great in counsels, and the arts
Grave Nestor and the wise Ulysses practised,
To make their English sweet upon their tongue,
As reverend Chaucer says ? 2

ing upon it, may not improperly be added here. "The next thing in a family is the entertainment of servants, which this honourable person knew best to chuse, because himselfe had been a servant. Though he was born of a most noble family, yet being a younger brother, as the usual custome of our countrie is, he was compelled by necessitie to serve in a noble familie, but after was preferred to the service of the late queene of happie memorie." Sermon at the Funerall of Henrie (Grey, 7th) Earl of Kent, 1614.

2 As reverend Chaucer says?] In his character of the Frere. "Somwhat he lisped for his wantonnesse,

To make his English swete upon his tonge." v. 266.

Host. Sir, you mistake;

To play sir Pandarus, my copy hath it,
And carry messages to madam Cressid,

Instead of backing the brave steed, o' mornings,
To mount the chambermaid; and for a leap

Of the vaulting horse, to ply the vaulting-house:
For exercise of arms, a bale of dice,3

Or two or three packs of cards to shew the cheat,
And nimbleness of hand; mistake a cloak

From my lord's back, and pawn it; ease his pockets
Of a superfluous watch, or geld a jewel

Of an odd stone or so; twinge three or four buttons
From off my lady's gown: these are the arts,
Or seven liberal deadly sciences

Of

pagery, or rather paganism,

As the tides run! to which, if he apply him,
He
may, perhaps, take a degree at Tyburn,
A year the earlier; come, to read a lecture
Upon Aquinas at St. Thomas à Waterings,*
And so go forth a laureat in hemp circle!

Lov. You are tart, mine host, and talk above your seasoning,

3 Bale of dice,] i. e. a pair of dice; the expression is common to the writers of Jonson's age, as well as the preceding. Thus Skelton: "What lo man, se here of dyce a bale." Bouge of Court.

Again

66

WHAL.

Item, to my son, Mat Flowerdale, I bequeath two bale of false dice." The London Prodigal.

Upon Aquinas at St. Thomas à Waterings.] Anciently the place where criminals were executed, in the county of Surrey.

WHAL.

It lies on the road to Deptford. This elegant translation of Thomas Aquinas is of old date. It occurs in Chaucer: "And forth we riden all a little space,

Unto the Watering of St. Thomàs."

And appropriately in the ancient Morality of Hycke Scorner. "For at Saynt Thomas of Watrynge, and they strike a sayle Then must they ryde in the haven of hempe without fayle."