the same region that some here, perhaps, would have it; yet think, that therein the author hath observed a special decorum, the place being as dirty as Smithfield, and as stinking every whit.

Howsoever, he prays you to believe, his ware is still the same, else you will make him justly suspect that he that is so loth to look on a baby or an hobby-horse here, would be glad to take up a commodity of them, at any laughter or loss in another place. [Exeunt.

PRETTY conceit, and worth the finding! I have such luck to spin out these fine things still, and, like a silkworm, out of my self. Here's master Bartholomew Cokes, of Harrow o' the Hill, in the county of Middlesex, esquire, takes forth his license to marry mistress Grace Wellborn, of the said place and county: and when does he take it forth? to-day! the four and twentieth of August! Bartholomew-day! Bartholomew upon Bartholomew! there's the device! who would have marked such a leap-frog chance now? A very.... less1 than ames-ace, on two dice! Well, go thy ways, John Littlewit, proctor John Littlewit: one of the pretty wits of Paul's, the Littlewit of London, so thou art called, and something beside. When a

1 A very.... less, &c.] A word appears to have dropped out here: I would propose little as a substitute.

the aforesaid hearers and spectators, That they neither in themselves conceal, nor suffer by them to be con

somewhat abused.-At all events, I should not have stumbled on satyrs. Our ancestors indeed, used the same word (antiques) for antics, and antiquities; but, even in the former sense, I cannot admit that it means satyrs. The antique was the vice or clown of the old stage; and indeed lord Bacon, (not the worst judge of language,) expressly distinguishes the two characters. "Antimasques" (he says) "are usually composed of satyrs, baboons, antiques, beasts,” &c. Essays, xxxvii. The fact seems to be, that the commentators, having first determined that the Winter's Tale was ridiculed, looked through it for something to justify their conclusion! Had they turned to Bartholomew Fair, they would have discovered something to their purpose. In the third act, Jonson mentions "a nest of beards:" a sneer undoubtedly, "and who can help it," at Autolycus, who is furnished with a beard, (A. iv. S. 3.) and is moreover a little of an antique. Here the attack is direct and palpable! Here "old Ben speaks out!" This fortunate quotation of mine may be of use in a philological sense, as it tends to shew that nest does not, as the critics seem to suppose, exclusively and necessarily mean, a dance of satyrs."

Long as this note is, I am unwilling to dismiss it without noticing the immense importance of the "malignity" of Jonson to the commentators! It settles dates, it decides controversies, and it occasionally reconciles the bitterest enemies-" your if is not a more excellent peace-maker." "The Tempest," it seems, must have been written before 1614." But why? The answer is as ready as a borrower's cap:-" because Jonson sneers at it in that year"! And this settles the contest.

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With respect to the "Winter's Tale," Mr. Malone once assigned it to 1604, but fortunately observing "that Ben Jonson had ridiculed it in his Bartholomew Fair, which first appeared in 1614," he inclines to think that it was joined in the same censure with the Tempest, in consequence of the two plays having been produced at no great distance of time from each other; and that, therefore, the Winter's Tale ought to have been ascribed to the year 1613! I am afraid that we are still afloat in this matter; for it happens, (though Mr. Malone, who probably never opened Jonson in his life, except to run his finger rapidly down a particular page, was ignorant of it,) that the expressions which have given such offence, are copied almost literally from the preface to the 4to. edition of the Alchemist, which appeared in 1612. Such is the sad effect of laying foundations for argument in prejudice and injustice !

Mitre and Mermaid-men! not a corn of true salt, not a grain of right mustard amongst them all. They may stand for places, or so, again the next wit-fall, and pay two-pence in a quart more for their canary than other men. But give me the man can start up a justice of wit out of six shillings beer, and give the law to all the poets and poet-suckers in town :-because they are the players' gossips! 'Slid, other men have wives as fine as the players, and as well drest. Come hither, Win. [Kisses her.

Enter WINWIFE.

Winw. Why, how now, master Littlewit! measuring of lips, or molding of kisses? which is it?

Lit. Troth, I am a little taken with my Win's dressing here does it not fine, master Winwife? How do you apprehend, sir? she would not have worn this habit. I challenge all Cheapside to shew such another: Moor-fields, Pimlico-path, or the Exchange, in a summer evening, with a lace to boot, as this has. Dear Win, let master Winwife kiss you. He comes a wooing to our mother, Win, and may be our father perhaps, Win. There's no harm in him, Win.

Winw. None in the earth, master Littlewit.

Lit. I envy no man my delicates, sir.

[Kisses her.

Winw. Alas, you have the garden where they grow still! A wife here with a strawberry breath, cherry-lips, apricot cheeks, and a soft velvet head," like a melicotton.

A soft velvet head like a melicotton.] The allusion is to Win's cap a velvet cap was, at this time, the fashionable dress. In consequence of a sumptuary law made by Elizabeth, "ceased" (as Stow tells us)" the wearing of minever caps, otherwise called threecorner caps, which formerly was the wearing of all grave matrons: -but the Aldermen's wives and such like, made them bonnets of

the same region that some here, perhaps, would have it; yet think, that therein the author hath observed a special decorum, the place being as dirty as Smithfield, and as stinking every whit.

Howsoever, he prays you to believe, his ware is still the same, else you will make him justly suspect that he that is so loth to look on a baby or an hobby-horse here, would be glad to take up a commodity of them, at any laughter or loss in another place. [Exeunt.