Enter TROUBLEALL, with a dripping-pan, followed by URSULA and NIGHTINGALE.

Trou. By your leave, stand by, my masters, be uncover'd.

Urs. O stay him, stay him, help to cry, Nightingale; my pan, my pan!

Over. What's the matter?

Night. He has stolen gammar Ursula's pan.

Tro. Yes, and I fear no man but justice Overdo. Over. Ursula ! where is she? O the sow of enormity, this! welcome, stand you there; you, songster, there.

Urs. An't please your worship, I am in no fault: a gentleman stripped him in my booth, and borrowed his gown, and his hat; and he ran away with my goods here for it.

Over. [to QUARLOUS.] Then this is the true madman, and you are the enormity!

Quar. You are in the right; I am mad but from the gown outward.

Over. Stand you there.

Quar. Where you please, sir.

Mrs. Over. [waking.] O, lend me a bason, I am sick, I am sick! where's master Overdo? Bridget, call hither my Adam.

Over. How!

[He is shamed and silenced.

Whit. Dy very own wife, i'fait, worshipful Adam. Mrs. Over. Will not my Adam come at me? shall I see him no more then?

Quar. Sir, why do you not go on with the enormity? are you oppressed with it? I'll help you: hark you, sir, in your ear-Your innocent young man, you have ta'en such care of all this day, is a cut-purse, that hath got all your brother Cokes' things, and helped you to your beating and the stocks; if you have a mind to hang him now, and shew him your

magistrate's wit, you may: but I should think it were better recovering the goods, and to save your estimation in him. I thank you, sir, for the gift of your ward, mistress Grace; look you, here is your hand and seal, by the way. Master Winwife, give you joy, you are Palemon, you are possessed of the gentlewoman, but she must pay me value, here's warrant for it. And, honest madman, there's thy gown and cap again; I thank thee for my wife. Nay, I can be mad, sweet-heart, [to Mrs. PURE.] when I please still; never fear me; and careful Numps, where's he? I thank him for my license.

Waspe. How!

Quar. 'Tis true, Numps.
Waspe. I'll be hang'd then.

Quar. Look in your box, Numps.-Nay, sir, [to OVERDO.] stand not you fix'd here, like a stake in Finsbury, to be shot at, or the whipping-post in the Fair, but get your wife out o' the air, it will make her worse else; and remember you are but Adam, flesh and blood! you have your frailty, forget your other name of Overdo, and invite us all to supper. There you and I will compare our discoveries; and drown the memory of all enormity in your biggest bowl at home.

Cokes. How now, Numps, have you lost it? I warrant 'twas when thou wert in the stocks: Why dost not speak!

Waspe. I will never speak while I live again, for aught I know.

Over. Nay, Humphrey, if I be patient, you must be so too; this pleasant conceited gentleman hath wrought upon my judgment, and prevail'd: I pray you take care of your sick friend, mistress Alice, and my good friends all

Quar. And no enormities.

Over. I invite you home with me to my house to

supper: I will have none fear to go along, for my intents are ad correctionem, non ad destructionem; ad ædificandum, non ad diruendum: so lead on.

Cokes. Yes, and bring the actors along, we'll have the rest of the play at home. [Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.

OUR Majesty hath seen the play, and you` Can best allow it from your ear and view. You know the scope of writers, and what store Of leave is given them, if they take not more, And turn it into license: you can tell If we have us'd that leave you gave us well: Or whether we to rage or license break, Or be profane, or make profane men speak: This is your power to judge, great sir, and not The envy of a few. Which if we have got, We value less what their dislike can bring, If it so happy be, t' have pleas'd the King.

9 Whether this play pleased the king we have no means of ascertaining. James, indeed, disliked the Puritans, and must have been gratified with the well drawn portraiture of them in Zeal-of-theLand Busy; but it is not altogether so certain that he would take delight in the strong ridicule thrown upon the controversies with them in the dispute between the Rabbi and puppet Dionysius. He had himself entered into more than one theological contest with them, and with a deplorable blindness in regard to their real object, always expected, poor man, in some auspicious moment, to reconcile them to the establishment in church and state, by the force of his own reasoning.

Dr. Johnson observes of the Merry Wives of Windsor, that "it is remarkable for the number of the personages, who exhibit more characters appropriated and discriminated than perhaps can be

found in any other play: " while the author of the Biographia Dramatica remarks, with far more accuracy (for Johnson knew nothing of our poet) that Bartholomew Fair exhibits perhaps the greatest assemblage of characters that ever was brought together within the compass of one single piece.

This play is placed by Milton, or his nephew, nearly on a level with those exquisite dramas the Fox and the Alchemist; and not unjustly, for it abounds in powerful satire, no less than in wit and humour; and the characters, numerous as they are, are all kept distinct from one another, and supported with a minuteness of attention which has probably never been exceeded. That the humour is of no elevated kind must be admitted; but it is suited to the persons; and the poet has prepared his reader for the manners and the language which he is about to adopt, in the introductory verses. That his choice of a subject was judicious, all may not be disposed to grant; but none will deny that he has treated it with consummate ability. Of Busy enough has been said. Cokes is unquestionably the most finished picture of a simpleton that the mimetic art ever produced. With sufficient natural powers to take from us all sense of uneasiness at his exposure, he is for ever wantoning on the verge of imbecility. His childish, but insatiable curiosity, his eagerness to possess every object within his reach, his total abandonment of himself to every amusement that offers, his incapacity of receiving more than one of two events at a time, with his anxious fears that the other will escape him, joined to the usual concomitants of folly, selfishness, cunning, and occasional fits of obstinacy, tend altogether to form a character infinitely amusing, and fully sufficient (in the hands of Nokes) to justify the "merry monarch," for the unusual glee with which he is reported to have witnessed its representation.

I have no design to analyze the rest of the dramatis personæ, though I cannot refrain from observing that there is scarcely one of them which does not manifest a degree of skill, little if at all inferior to that displayed in the character of Cokes. Even the trifling part of Troubleall, in any other writer than Jonson, would be thought deserving of praise, for its correct delineation of a particular species of insanity, too inoffensive for fear, and too slight for commiseration.

No small part of the mirth of this play arises from the ridiculous mortifications to which the various characters are subjected by the ingenious progress of the plot. The confident and careful Numps is tricked and disgraced on every occasion. Cokes is stript in succession of every thing valuable, even to his clothes, and makes his last appearance nearly in a state of nudity. The wise justice is in a maze of dupery from the first scene to the last. The widowhater marries an ancient trillibub of that description. In a word,

there is scarcely one of the numerous dramatis persona, who does not furnish his share of entertainment by appearing in situations directly opposite to his pretensions.

From the success which attended this play, the epiphonema "O rare Ben Jonson!" (afterwards placed on his tomb-stone), is said to have been first given to our author.