But in capp paper lett ytt printed bee
Indeed browne paper is too good for thee
And lett ytt bee soe apocriphall

As nott to dare to venture on a stall
Exceppt ytt bee of Druggers Grocers Cookes
Victuallers Tobackoe men and such like Rookes
From Buckers Burye lett ytt not be barde
But thincke nott of Ducke lane or Paules
Churchyarde

Butt to aduyse the Ben, in this strickt age
A brickekills better for the then a stage
Thou better knowes a groundsell how to laye
Than lay the plott or groundeworke of a playe
And better canst derecte to capp a chimney
Then to conuerse with Clio or Polihimny
Fall then to work in thy old age agen*
Take vpp your trugg and trowell gentle Ben
Lett playes alone and yff thou needs wilte wright
And thrust thy feeble Muse into the light
Lett Lownie cease, and Taylore feare to touch
The loathed stage; for thou hast made ytt such.
ALEXANDER GILL.

Gill's scurrility was not allowed to pass with impunity. Many answers were made to it. The following by Zouch Townley is preserved among the Ashmole papers.

Mr. ZOUCH TOWNLYE to Mr. BEN

JOHNSON,

against Mr. ALEXANDER GILL'S verses written against the play called the Magnetick Ladye. It cannot moue thy friend, firm Ben, that he,t Whom the star-chamber censured, rayles at thee, I gratulate the method of thy fate

That joyned thee next in malice to the state:
Thus Nero, after parricidall guilt,
Brooks noe delayes till Lucan's blood bee spilt;

*Fall then to work in thy old age agen] When this friendly counsel was given, Jonson had been confined to his room many years by a complication of disorders, and was obliged to have recourse to the pen, in his short intervals of ease, for a subsistence. The advice, however, was not unworthy of the giver.

That he

Whom the star-chamber censured, &c.] Something of this appears among Aubrey's papers. "Sir William Davenant (poet laureat) told me that notwithstanding this doctor's great reason he was guiltie of the detestable crime of treachery. Dr. Gill, F(ilius) Dris Gill, schoolmaster of Paul's School, and Chillingworth, held weekly intelligence one with another for some yeares, wherein they used to nibble at state matters. Dr. Gill, in one of his letters, calls King James and his sonne the old foole and the young one, which letter Chillingworth communicated to W. Laud, A. B. Cant. The poore young Dr. Gille was seized, and a terrible storme pointed towards him, which by the eloquent intercession and advocation of Edward, Earl of Dorset, together with the teares of the poore old doctor, his father, and supplication on his knees to his majesty, were blowne over."-Vol. ii. p. 285.

The same circumstance is also mentioned in Gill's Ass Uncased:

Nor could his mischife finde a second crime,
Unles hee slew the poet of the time.
But, thanks to Helicon, here are no blows,
This drone no more of stinge then honye shows:
His verses shall be counted censures, when
Cast malefactors are made jurie-men.
Meane while rejoice, that soe disgraced a quill
"Tempted to wound that worth, time cannot kill.
-And thou, who dar'st to blast fame fully blown,
Lye buried in the ruines of thine own.
Vex not thine ashes, open not the deep,
The ghost of thy slain name would rather sleep.
ZOUCH TOWNLYE.
MS. Ashmole, Numb. 38 (6907) fol. 59.

But Jonson wanted no assistance. Feeble as he was, he was yet more than competent to the chastisement of such a character as Gill; and in the following brief retort, as full of scorn as bitterness, put him to silence if not to shame. No more is heard of "young Master Gill." Shall the prosperity of a pardon still Secure thy railing rhymes, infamous Gill, At libelling? Shall no Star chamber peers, [Nor] pillory, nor whip, nor want of ears, All which thou hast incurred deservedly, Nor degradation from the ministry, To be the Denis of thy father's school, t Keep in thy bawling wit, thou bawling fool? I'll laugh at thee, poor wretched tike: go send Thinking to stir me, thou hast lost thy end, Thy blatant muse abroad, and teach it rather

A tune to drown the ballads of thy father:
For thou hast nought [in thee] to cure his fame,
But tune and noise, the echo of his shame.
A rogue by statute, censured to be whipt,
Cropt, branded, slit, neck-stockt:-Go, you are
stript!

"But now remains the vilest thing,

Thy ale-house barking 'gainst the king,
And all his brave and noble peers,
For which thou venturedst for thy ears!
And if thou hadst thy right
Cut off they had been quite,
And thou hadst been a rogue in sight," &c.

From the same poem it appears that Gill had given great offence at Trinity College by his indecent performance of the Chapel Service, while he was reading clerk, for which he was tost in a blanket. His conduct as a minister was not more correct:

"For since that thou a preacher were
Thou vented hast such rascal gear,
That even the freshmen all cryed fie!
To hear such pulpit ribaudrie," &c.

To be the Denis of thy father's school.] Gill had been usher to his father as well as to the learned Farnaby, from whom he certainly did not acquire his spleen against Jonson. The "ballads of Gill the father" I never met with, nor indeed any other work of his but the Logo nomie, a conceited and barbarous attempt to "rectify the writing of the English language," which seems to have fallen into the hands of the late James Elphinstone.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-Totten Court.

Before Lady Tub's House.

Enter Canon Hugh.

Hugh. Now on my faith, old Bishop Valentine,

You have brought us nipping weather

Februere

If they be sped of loves :] i.e., already furnished with makes or mates; for then they need not rise early to find a Valentine. The good "old bishop" is somewhat oddly selected for the patron of this amatory device, as all that seems known of him is that he suffered martyrdom in the third century. Lady Tub, however, in the concluding scene of this act, gives a full and indeed an elegant description of his virtues, as they are found perhaps in the Legend. It is probable

And think I conjured up the spirit, her

son,

In priest's lack-Latin. O she is jealous
Of all mankind for him.

Tub. [appears at the window.] Canon, is't you?

Hugh. The vicar of Pancras, Squire Tub! wa'hoh !

Tub. I come, I stoop unto the call, Sir Hugh!

Hugh. He knows my lure is from his love, fair Awdrey,

The high constable's daughter of Kentish Town here master,

Tobias Turfe.

Enter Tub in his night-gown.

Tub. What news of him?
Hugh. He has waked me

An hour before I would, sir; and my duty

To the young worship of Totten-Court, Squire Tripoly;

Who hath my heart, as I have his. Your mistress

Is to be made away from you this morning,

St. Valentine's day: there are a knot of clowns,

The council of Finsbury, so they are ystyled,

Met at her father's; all the wise of the hundred ;

Old Rasi' Clench of Hamstead, petty constable,

In-and-In Medlay, cooper of Islington, And headborough; with loud To-Pan, the tinker

that his name occupied in the Calendar the place of some heathen divinity, whose rites were thus celebrated; for the origin of the practice is lost in remote antiquity.

This pretty superstition exists in almost every part of the Continent as well as in England; and long may it continue to do so! The affectation of superior wisdom has shamed the people out of too many of those innocent follies, and left their places to be supplied by grossness and vice.

Or metal-man of Belsise, the thirdborough;1 And D'ogenes Scriben, the great writer of Chalcot.

Tub. And why all these?

Hugh. Sir, to conclude in council

A husband or a make for Mistress Awdrey;
Whom they have named and pricked down
Clay of Kilborn,

A tough young fellow, and a tilemaker.
Tub. And what must he do?

Hugh. Cover her, they say;

And keep her warm, sir: Mistress Awdrey Turfe

Last night did draw him for her Valentine; Which chance, it hath so taken her father and mother,

(Because themselves drew so on Valentine's

eve

Was thirty year,) as they will have her married

To-day by any means; they have sent a

messenger

To Kilborn, post, for Clay; which when I knew,

I posted with the like to worshipful Tripoly, The Squire of Totten: and my advice to cross it.

Tub. What is't, Sir Hugh?

Hugh. Where is your governor, Hilts? Basket must do it.

Tub. Basket shall be called.Hilts! can you see to rise?

[Aloud. Hilts. [appears at the window.] Cham not blind, sir,

With too much light.

Tub. Open your t'other eye,

And view if it be day.

Hilts. Che can spy that

At's little a hole as another, through a milstone.

[Exit above.

'The thirdborough ;] I know not how this officer was distinguished from the constable unless by name. In the old divisions of municipal power he was the third in rank in the decennary or tithing. In the Dramatis Persona Jonson enumerates every civil officer, from the justice to the high constable's man. The thirdborough is mentioned by the hostess in Taming the Shrew, to intimidate the refractory Sly: "I know my remedy: I must go fetch the thirdborough."

2 Though he talk bilk] I have mislaid my examples of the use of this word, as explained by Squire Tub. It seems to have become a cant term about this time, for the use of it is ridiculed

by others as well as Jonson. It is thus explained in Cole's English Dict. "Bilk, nothing; also to deceive."

In "Davenant Vindicated," a burlesque poem, the meaning is thus expressed:

Tub. He will have the last word, though he talk bilk for't.2

Hugh. Bilk! what's that?

Tub. Why, nothing; a word signifying Nothing; and borrowed here to express nothing.

Hugh. A fine device!

Tub. Yes, till we hear a finer.
What's your device now, Canon Hugh?
Hugh. In private,

Lend it your ear; I will not trust the air with it,

Or scarce my shirt; my cassock shall not know it;

If I thought it did I'd burn it.
Tub. That's the way,

You have thought to get a new one, Hugh: is't worth it?

Let's hear it first.

"Some say by Avenant no place is meant, And that our Lombard is without descent, And as by bilk men mean there's nothing there,

So come from Avenant, means from nowhere." [One of Gifford's mislaid references was most where Blount says, probably to the Glossographia, ed. 1681, p. 85, Bilk is said to be an Arabic word and signifies nothing; cribbage players understand it best."-See Halliwell's Archaic and Provincial Words, sub voce. On reference

to Lane's Arabic Dictionary I find this derivation fully confirmed.

baluk-a desert tract of sand which gives growth to nothing.

white plains in sand, which give growth to nothing.-F. C.]

Like middle March afore: he will be as mellow,

And tipsy too, as October; and as grave And bound up like a frost (with the new year)

In January; as rigid as he is rustic.

scribe it well;

I'll leave him to your fashioning.

Tub. Stay, Sir Hugh;

Take a good angel with you for your guide; [Gives him a piece of money. And let this guard you homeward, as the blessing

To our device

[Exit.

Hugh. I thank you, squire's worship, Most humbly-for the next; for this I am sure of.

O for a quire of these voices now,

To chime in a man's pocket, and cry chink!

One doth not chirp, it makes no harmony. Grave Justice Bramble next must contribute;

His charity must offer at this wedding:
I'll bid more to the bason and the bride-ale,
Although but one can bear away the bride.
I smile to think how like a lottery
These weddings are. Clay hath her in
possession,

The squire he hopes to circumvent the
Tile-kill;

And now, if Justice Bramble do come off,1 'Tis two to one but Tub may lose his bottom. [Exit.

SCENE II.-Kentish Town.

A Room in Turfe's House. Enter Clench, Medlay, D'oge Scriben, Bull Puppy, and Pan.

Clench. Why, 'tis thirty year, e'en as this day now,

Zin Valentine's day, of all days kursined, look you;

And the zame day o' the month as this Zin Valentine,

Or I am vowly deceived

Med. That our high constable,

1 If Justice Bramble do come off,] i.e., pay well. See Massinger, vol. i. p. 210.

Of all days kursined,] i.e., christened.WHAL. Thus Fletcher, The Coxcomb:

"Are they kursined?

No, they call them infidels." Whalley follows the old copy, which reads:

As I have heard; but 'twas avore my time: He was a cooper too, as you are, Medlay, An In-and-In: a woundy, brag young vellow,

As the port went o' hun then, and in those days.

Scri. Did he not write his name Sim
Valentine?

Vor I have met no Sin in Finsbury books; And yet I have writ them six or seven times over.

Pan. O you mun look for the nine deadly Sins,

In the church-books, D'oge; not [in] the high constable's;

Nor in the county's: zure, that same Zin
Valentine,

He was a stately zin, an' he were a zin,
And kept brave house.

Clench. At the Cock-and-Hen in High-
gate.

You have freshed my memory well in't, neighbour Pan:

He had a place in last King Harry's time, Of sorting all the young couples; joining them,

And putting them together; which is yet
Praformed, as on this day-Zin Valentine:
As being the zin of the shire, or the whole
county:

I am old Rivet still, and bear a brain,
The Clench, the varrier, and true leech of
Hamstead.

Pan. You are a shrewd antiquity,
neighbour Clench,

And a great guide to all the parishes!
The very bell-wether of the hundred here,
As I may zay. Master Tobias Turfe,
High constable, would not miss you for a