Dol. Are you sound? Have you your senses, masters? Face. I will have A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures, Face. Out, you dog-leach! The vomit of all prisons Dol. Will you be Your own destructions, gentlemen? For lying too heavy on the basket.1 the Stationers' Company, (May 1605,) is entered a work called "the lyfe and death of Gamaliel Ratsey, a famous theefe of England, executed at Bedford." There are also several "Ballats" on the subject, entered about the same time. But the achievements of Gamaliel have been sung in more than one language,—a proof, at least, of their celebrity. In a small volume, belonging to Mr. Bindley, of the Stamp Office, intitled "Schediasmata Poetica, sive Epigrammatum Libellus, authore J. Johnson, in artibus Magistro Cantab. &c. Londini, 1615," are the following testimonials to the notoriety of this hero. The first has some of the quaint humour of the times the second is a complete failure: the author should have parodied Horace instead of Virgil: 1 In Ratseum, furem famosissimum. Cereus in vitium flecti, tu cerite cerâ, Tu brevibus Gyaris, Ratsee, dignus eras. Ejusdem Sermo ad Socios. O Socii, (neque enim nos hi latuere dolores) Tendimus in laqueum, sedes ubi fata molestas Still spew'd out For lying too heavy on the basket,] i. e. for eating more than his Sub. Cheater! Face. Bawd! Sub. Cow-herd! We are ruin'd, lost! have you no more regard Face. Away, this brach! I'll bring thee, rogue, within The statute of sorcery, tricesimo tertio Of Harry the eighth ay, and perhaps, thy neck Within a noose, for laundring gold and barbing it.' Dol. [Snatches FACE's sword.] You'll bring your head within a cockscomb, will you? share of the broken provisions collected, and sent in for the prisoners. This is mentioned by Shirley: "you shall howl all day at the grate for a meal at night from the basket." Bird in a Cage. WHAL. "A mannerly name for a b-h," as the See Massinger, vol. i. 210. 2 Away, this brach !] old book on sports says. 3 I'll bring thee, rogue, within The statute of sorcery, &c.] By this statute, which Face has very accurately dated, all witchcraft and sorcery was declared to be felony without benefit of clergy. This was confirmed by the famous statute 1 Jac. i. c. 12. ▲ For laundring gold and barbing it.] To launder gold is, probably, to wash it in aqua regia; a practice, it is to be feared, (while gold was,) not uncommon. This verb is not found in our dictionaries; though it is as regularly formed as the substantive, (laundress,) and seems altogether as necessary. Laundring occurs in Shakspeare; or in "one deformed that goes up and down under his name." "Laundring the silken figures in the brine That season'd woe had pelletted in tears !" A Lover's Complaint. Barbing is clipping. This is sufficiently obvious. This also was felony without benefit of clergy; so that Subtle was really in danger. And you, sir, with your menstrue-[dashes SUBTle's Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriers will trust The venture tripartite? all things in common? Face. 'Tis his fault; He ever murmurs, and objects his pains, Dol. How does it? do not we Sustain our parts? 5 Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriers will trust So much as for a feather.] Blackfriers was celebrated for the residence of Puritans at this time; the principal dealers in feathers and other vanities of the age! This is noted by many of our old dramatists; but see vol. ii. p. 441. Sub. Yes, but they are not equal. Dol. Why, if your part exceed to-day, I hope Ours may, to-morrow, match it. Sub. Ay, they may. Dol. May, murmuring mastiff! ay, and do. Death on me! Help me to throttle him. [Seizes SUB. by the throat. Sub. Dorothy! mistress Dorothy! 'Ods precious, I'll do any thing. What do you mean? Dol. Because o' your fermentation and cibation?" Sub. Not I, by heaven Dol. Your Sol and Luna -help me. [to FACE. Sub. Would I were hang'd then! I'll conform myself. Dol. Will you, sir? do so then, and quickly: swear. Sub. What should I swear. Dol. To leave your faction, sir, And labour kindly in the common work. ́ Sub. Let me not breathe if I meant aught beside. I only used those speeches as a spur To him. Dol. I hope we need no spurs, sir. Do we? Dol. Yes, and work close and friendly. Shall grow the stronger for this breach, with me. [They shake hands. 6 Because o' your fermentation and cibation ?] I trust that the reader will not expect me to explain all the technical terms of this art. An adept himself, perhaps, would be puzzled by some of them; and I am a mere tyro. Fermentation is the sixth process in alchemy, and means the mutation of any substance into the nature of the ferment, after its primary qualities have been destroyed. Cibation (the seventh process) is feeding the matter in preparation, with fresh substances, to supply the waste of evaporation, &c. Sol and Luna, with which mistress Dorothea reproaches Subtle just below, are gold and silver; for in the cant of alchemy, nothing goes by its right name. 8 Dol. Why, so, my good baboons! Shall we go make A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours, That scarce have smiled twice since the king came in,7 A feast of laughter at our follies? Rascals, Would run themselves from breath, to see me ride, Or you t' have but a hole to thrust your heads in, For which you should pay ear-rent? No, agree. And may don Provost ride a feasting long, In his old velvet jerkin and stain'd scarfs, My noble sovereign, and worthy general, Ere we contribute a new crewel garter To his most worsted worship. Sub. Royal Dol! Spoken like Claridiana,' and thyself. Face. For which at supper, thou shalt sit in triumph, And not be styled Dol Common, but Dol Proper, Dol Singular the longest cut at night, Shall draw thee for his Dol Particular. [Bell rings without. Sub. Who's that? one rings. To the window, Dol: [Exit DOL.]-pray heaven, The master do not trouble us this quarter. "Since the king came in.] James succeeded to the throne in 1603, and this was written in 1610. 8 to see me ride, &c.] "To see me (as Upton says) carted as a bawd; and you, as a couple of rogues, to lose your ears in the pillory." 9 Ere we contribute a new crewel garter To his most worsted worship.] Dol grows quite facetious at "don Provost's" expense. Crewel, a word which frequently occurs in our old poets, and seldom without suggesting a pun, as here, means a finer kind of yarn, of which trimmings were occasionally made. His most worsted worship," in the present exaltation of Dorothy's mind, is, perhaps, his most baffled worship. Not the worst quibble in these volumes. 1 66 Spoken like Claridiana.] The heroine of that interminable romance, the Mirror of Knighthood, who, after a world of turmoil and fighting, espouses the knight of the sun, the darling of "the fair Lindabrides," so often mentioned by our poet. |