Fast. Would you speak with me, sir?
Car. Ay, when he has recovered himself, poor

Poll!9

Punt. Some rosa-solis.

Maci. How now, signior?
Fung. I am not well, sir.

Maci. Why, this it is to dog the fashion.' Car. Nay, come, gentlemen, remember your affairs; his disease is nothing but the flux of apparel

Punt. Sirs, return to the lodging, keep the cat safe; I'll be the dog's guardian myself. [Exeunt Servants. Sog. Nephew, will you go to court with us? these gentlemen and I are for the court: nay, be not so melancholy.

Fung. 'Slid, I think no man in Christendom has that rascally fortune that I have.

Maci. Faith, your suit is well enough, signior. Fung. Nay, not for that, I protest; but I had an errand to monsieur Fastidious, and I have forgot it.

Maci. Why, go along to court with us, and remember it; come, gentlemen, you three take one boat, and Sogliardo and I will take another: we shall be there instantly.

Fast. Content: good sir, vouchsafe us your pleasance.

Punt. Farewell, Carlo; remember.

Car. I warrant you: would I had one of Kemp's shoes to throw after you."

9 Poor poll! He calls him parrot, from his imitating the dress, as that bird does the words, of others. WHAL

this it is to dog the fashion.] i. c. To follow the fashion at a distance, as a dog follows the heels of his master.

2

WHAL.

would I had one of Kemp's shoes to throw after you.] "To throw an old shoe after one for luck's sake," is a proverb N

VOL. II.

Punt. Good fortune will close the eyes of our jest, fear not; and we shall frolick. [Exeunt.

Mit. This Macilente, signior, begins to be more sociable on a sudden, methinks, than he was before: there's some portent in it, I believe.

Cor. O, he's a fellow of a strange nature. Now. does he, in this calm of his humour, plot, and store up a world of malicious thoughts in his brain, till he is so full with them, that you shall see the very torrent of his envy break forth like a land-flood: and, against the course of all their affections, oppose itself so violently, that you will almost have wonder to think, how 'tis possible the current of their dispositions shall receive so quick and strong an

alteration.

Mit. Ay marry, sir, this is that, on which my expectation has dwelt all this while: for I must tell you, signior, though I was loth to interrupt the scene, yet I made it a question in mine own private discourse, how he should properly call it Every Man out of his Humour, when I saw all his actors so strongly pursue, and continue their humours?

Cor. Why, therein his art appears most full of lustre, and approacheth nearest the life: especially

of very ancient standing; and Kempe, who about this time had finished his Nine Days Wonder," or his Morrice-dance from London to Norwich, was sufficiently popular (exclusive of his talents on the stage) to make the allusion to his shoes well received. Peradventure too, as Nic. Bottom says, "to render the jest more gracious," Kempe himself might be the speaker; for though his name does not appear among the performers, as in the preceding comedy, yet it is almost certain that he was in the list; and he, not improbably, played Carlo Buffone.

Kempe published the account of his singular expedition in 1600. It is a great curiosity, and, as a rude picture of national manners, extremely well worth reprinting.

3 Cor. Why, therein his art appears most full of lustre, &c.] In this compliment, which. Jonson pays to himself, there is a

when in the flame and height of their humours, they are laid flat, it fills the eye better, and with more contentment. How tedious a sight were it to behold a proud exalted tree lopt, and cut down by degrees, when it might be fell'd in a moment? and to set the axe to it before it came to that pride and fullness, were, as not to have it grow.

Mit. Well, I shall long till I see this fall, you talk of.

Cor. To help your longing, signior, let your imagination be swifter than a pair of oars: and by this, suppose Puntarvolo, Brisk, Fungoso, and the dog, arrived at the court-gate, and going up to the great chamber. Macilente and Sogliardo, we'll leave them on the water, till possibility and natural means may land them. Here come the gallants, now prepare your expectation.

portion of sophistry and bad reasoning, of which poor Mitis, as usual, suspects nothing. A tree, whether felled in a moment, or cut down by degrees, is still destroyed by violence; but violent changes in humours, as Jonson justly understands the word, are neither probable nor natural. He had well learned, from his beloved ancients, that, previously to a change in the tenor of the plot, the incidents should all grow to their pride and fullness; but he forgot, or rather did not choose to remember, that the developement should not, for that, be hasty and abrupt. This error is not of modern date, for it is noticed by Aristotle. There are many, he says, who complicate and involve their plots with much art, but who are not equally suc cessful in the unravelling of them: Πολλοι δε, πλεξανίες εν, λυσσι Падь По, сар. 18.

ACT V. SCENE I.

The Palace Stairs.

Enter PUNTARVOLO, with his dog, followed by FASTIDIOUS BRISK and FUNGOSO.

Punt. Come, gentles. Signior, you are sufficiently instructed.

Fast. Who, I, sir?

Punt. No, this gentleman. But stay, I take thought how to bestow my dog; he is no competent attendant for the presence.

Fast. Mass, that's true indeed, knight; you must not carry him into the presence.

Punt. I know it, and I, like a dull beast, forgot to bring one of my cormorants to attend me." Fast. Why, you were best leave him at the porter's lodge.

Punt. Not so; his worth is too well known amongst them, to be forth-coming.

Fast. 'Slight, how will you do then?

Punt. I must leave him with one that is ignorant of his quality, if I will have him to be safe. And see! here comes one that will carry coals, ergo, will hold my dog.

Enter a Groom, with a basket.

My honest friend, may I commit the tuition of this dog to thy prudent care?

forgot to bring one of my cormorants to attend me.] i. e. one of my servants. Menials appear to have been treated formerly with very little ceremony: they were stripped and beaten at their master's pleasure; and cormorants, eaters, and feeders, were among the civilest names bestowed upon them.

5 Enter a Groom, with a basket.] This stage direction is from the quarto, and it may be assumed, from Puntarvolo's observation,

Groom. You

may, if you please, sir.

Punt. Pray thee let me find thee here at my return; it shall not be long, till I will ease thee of thy employment, and please thee. Forth, gentles.

Fast. Why, but will you leave him with so slight command, and infuse no more charge upon the fellow?

Punt. Charge! no; there were no policy in that; that were to let him know the value of the gem he holds, and so to tempt frail nature against her disposition. No, pray thee let thy honesty be sweet, as it shall be short.

Groom. Yes, sir.

Punt. But hark you, gallants, and chiefly monsieur Brisk; when we come in eye-shot, or

that the basket had coals in it. With our ancestors, colliers, I know not for what reason, lay, like Mrs. Quickly, under an ill name: Decker has a little treatise on them, full of the grossest abuse; and a dealer in coals, an article, at that time, of no great sale, perhaps, seems synonymous with every thing base, and vile. Thus Marston, speaking of worthless people, says, that 66 they were born naturally for a coal-basket." Malecontent, A. IV. S. 1. The allusion here, however, is not to the seller of this unfortunate article, but to the bearer of it. In all great houses, but particularly in the royal residences, there were a number of mean and dirty dependents, whose office it was to attend the wood-yard, scullerics, &c. Of these (for in the lowest deep there was a lower still) the most forlorn wretches. seem to have been selected to carry coals to the kitchens, halls, &c. To this smutty regiment, who attended the progresses, and rode in the carts with the pots and kettles, which, with every other article of furniture, were then moved from palace to palace, the people, in derision, gave the name of black guards, a term since become sufficiently familiar, and never properly explained. Mr. Pinkerton, with his usual success in etymologizing, attempts to derive them from blaguer, which, he tells us, is French for a soldier's trull: they were, however, what I have described; and it is to one of this degraded race, who now enters with his basket of charcoal, that Puntarvolo ventures to comm the tuition of his dog. See p. 179.