A gossip's jealousy first gave the hint.

He drives another way now, as I would have

him;

A suitor to your niece.

Sir Moth. Yes.

Rut. You were

furnace,

And yet she is not heard of..

Sir Moth. Be she ne'er heard of,
The safety of Great Britain lies not on't.
You are content with the ten thousand
pound,

Defalking the four hundred garnish-money?
That's the condition here, afore the doctor,
And your demand, friend Bias?
Bias. It is, Sir Moth.

Enter Palate.

Rut. Here comes the parson then, shall make all sure.

Sir Moth. Go you with my friend Bias, parson Palate,

Unto my niece; assure them we are agreed.

Pal. And Mistress Compass too is found within.

Sir Moth. Where was she hid ?
Pal. In an old bottle-house,

Where they scraped trenchers; there her mother had thrust her.

Rut. You shall have time, sir, to triumph on him,

When this fine feat is done, and his RudIronside.

[Exeunt.

tween you.

Sir Moth. And sealed.

Rut. What broke you off?

Sir Moth. This rumour of her:

Was it not, Master Bias?

Bias. Which I find

Now false, and therefore come to make amends

In the first place. I stand to the old conditions.

Rut. Faith, give them him, Sir Moth, whate'er they were.

You have a brave occasion now to cross The flanting Master Compass, who pretends

Right to the portion, by the other entail. Sir Moth. And claims it. You do hear he's married?

Bias. We hear his wife is run away from him,

Within: she is not to be found in the house,

With all the hue and cry is made for her Through every room; the larders have been searched,

The bakehouses and boulting tub, the

ovens,

VOL. II.

Iron. Faith, I will bail him at mine own apperil.'

Com. And I will take the boldness, sir, to do it:

1 Faith, I will bail him at mine own apperil.] This is the second example in Jonson of a word which had no existence in the English language, and was therefore taken away from the genuine text of our great poet! See vol. ii. p. 265 a. Both Steevens and Malone make frequent mention of The Case is Altered. There too the word occurs; though they could never find anything in that comedy but a sneer at Shakspeare.

2 How little Jonson is known to the dramatic critics may be collected from the silence which they all observe respecting the character of Mrs. Polish, the most perfect representation of

doctor.

Sir Dia. Good faith, this same is like to turn a business.

Pal. And a shrewd business, marry;
they all start at it.

Com. I have the right thread now, and
I will keep it.

You, goody Keep, confess the truth to my lady,

The truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.

Pol. I scorn to be prevented of my glories.

I plotted the deceit, and I will own it. Love to my child, and lucre of the portion Provoked me; wherein, though the event hath failed

In part, I will make use of the best side. This is my daughter, [Points to Placentia.] and she hath had a child

This day, unto her shame I now profess it, By this mere false stick, Squire Needle; but

Since this wise knight hath thought it good to change

The foolish father of it, by assuring Her to his dear friend, Master Bias; and him

Again to her, by clapping of him on With his free promise of ten thousand pound,

Afore so many witnesses

Sir Dia. Whereof I

Am one.

Pal. And I another.

Pol. I should be unnatural

To my own flesh and blood, would I not thank him.

I thank you, sir; and I have reason for it.2 For here your true niece stands, fine Mistress Compass,

(I'll tell you truth, you have deserved it from me),

a gossiping "toad-eater" that the English stage can boast. Supple, voluble, and abounding in anecdote, she wins her way to confidence, betrays her trust, insults the agents of her guilt in the madness of security, and when discovered, in spite of the readiness of her subterfuges, assumes the most frontless hardihood, and without a touch of penitence for her crime, gaily proceeds to anticipate the reward of her treachery. Such characters are not common; but they may be found: and to point them out is not the least useful province of the dramatic poet.

With these conditions.

Pol. Will you leave her then?

Bias. Yes, and the sum twice told, ere take a wife

To pick out Monsieur Needle's bastingthreads.

Com. Gossip, you are paid: though he be a fit nature,

Worthy to have a whore justly put on him,
He is not bad enough to take your daughter,
On such a cheat. Will you yet pay the
portion?

Sir Moth. What will you bate?
Com. No penny the law gives.
Sir Moth. Yes, Bias's money.
Com. What, your friend in court!

I will not rob you of him, nor the purchase, Nor your dear doctor here; stand all together,

Birds of a nature all, and of a feather. Lady L. Well, we are all now reconciled to truth.

There rests yet a gratuity from me,

My true Magnetic mistress, and my lady.] We have observed before that our author seldom produced a play but it created him enemies: whether it was really, as his antagonists gave out, that his satire was levelled at the foibles of some particular person, or whether it proceeded from that envy which the other playwrights of those days conceived against one so much their superior in genius and critical abilities. Langbaine has preserved part of a satire wrote against this play by Alexander Gill, with Jonson's answer. Gill was usher to his father in St. Paul's school; he was not void of learning, but of no great regularity in his manners or his way of living. What was the occasion of their difference does not appear, but our poet treats him roughly enough in his reply.-WHAL.

Whalley knew no more of this satire than the few lines which he found in Langbaine. The

To be conferred upon this gentleman, Who, as my nephew Compass says, was

cause

First of the offence, but since of all the amends.

The quarrel caused the affright, that fright brought on

The travail, which made peace; the peace drew on

This new discovery, which endeth all
In RECONCILEMENT.

Com. When the portion
Is tendered and received.

Sir Moth. Well, you must have it; As good at first as last.

Lady L. 'Tis well said, brother. And I, if this good captain will accept me, Give him myself, endow him with my estate, And make him lord of me, and all my for

Keeper of the Bodleian Library, the Rev. Mr. Bandinell, has with a ready kindness which calls for my warmest acknowledgments, furnished me with a complete copy of it from the Ashmole MSS. It seems to have been hastily taken down by Ashmole or his amanuensis, and in one place there is apparently an omission of a line or more. It might perhaps be rendered somewhat more intelligible by a few obvious corrections, but I have preferred presenting it to the reader just as it stands in the only copy now perhaps in existence.

"

Whalley says that " the origin of their difference does not appear.' It had no other origin than the petulant malignity of Gill; for Jonson had given him no offence whatever, nor indeed does Gill even hint at his having received the slightest provocation from him. His exulta tion over the bedridden poet is that of a "fiend

CHORUS

CHANGED INTO AN EPILOGUE TO THE KING.

Well, gentlemen, I now must, under seal, And the author's charge, waive you, and make my appeal

To the supremest power, my lord the king;

in glee;" such, in fact, as might be expected from a character like Gill-splenetic, turbulent, and ferocious.

UPPON BEN JONSON'S MAGNETICK LADYE.

Parturient Montes Nascetur.

Is this your loade-stone Ben that must attract
Applause and laughter at each Scane and Acte
Is this the Childe of your bedridden witt
An none but the Blacke-friers foster ytt
If to the Fortune you had sent your Ladye
Mongest Prentizes and Apell wyfes, ytt may bee
Your Rosie Foole, might have some sporte haue
gott

With his strang-habitt, and indiffinet nott*
But when as silkes and plush, and all the witt
Are calde to see, and censure, as be fitte
And yff your follye take not, they perchance
Must here them selfes stilde Gentle Ignorance
Foh how ytt stinckes; what generall offence
Gives thy prophanes; and grosse impudencet
O how thy frind, Nat Butter gan to melte
And Inigo with laugheter ther grewe fatt
That thear was nothing worth the laughing att

+

Sir, did you this Epistle send,

Which is so vile and lewdly penned? In which no line I can espy

Of sense or true orthography," &c.

What generall offence

Gives thy prophanes; and gross impudence] If Gill alludes to the oaths in this play, as it was acted on the first night, they were the players' not the poet's-who was not present at the representation, and whose justification, under the hand of the Master of the Revels, is still extant. In The Magnetic Lady, as given by Jonson, there is neither profaneness nor impudence. But Gill was a bad poet and a worse man; and calumny and falsehood were the elements in

which he loved to move.

After this line, something appears to be lost.

And yett thou crazye art confidente
Belchinge out full mouthd oathes wyth foulle
intent

Calling vs fooles and rogues vnlettered men
Poore narrow soules that cannott judge of Ben:
Yet whych is worss after three shamfull foyles
The Printers must be put to further toyles
Whereas indeed to (vindicate thy fame)
Th' hadst better give thy Pamphelett to the
flame

O what a strange prodigious yeare twill bee
Yff this thy playe come forth in thirtye threet
Lett Doomesday rather come on Newyeares eve
And yff thy paper plague the worlde bereaue
Whych Plauge I feare worse than a serjeants
bitt

Worse then the Infection or an Ague fitt
Worse then Astronomers deuynning lipps
Worse then three sunns, a Comett or Eclipps
Or yff thy learned brother Allestree§
(Whose Homer unto the for Poetrye),
Should tell of raigne vppon Saint Swithins day
And that should wash our haruest clean a way
As for the Press; yf thy Playe must come toote
Lett Thomas Pursfoot or John Trundell dootte
In such dull charrecters as for releiffs
Of fires and wrackes wee find in beggine breefes

This ribaldry might have been spared. Jonson Yff this thy playe come forth in thirtye_three] entertained no design of printing The Magnetic Lady, nor was it given to the press till 1640 (three years after his death), a year that must have appeared somewhat " prodigious" to Gill for a much nearer cause than the production of missal of the wretched scribbler himself from the a harmless play, for it witnessed the merited dismastership of St. Paul's School, to which he had been advanced in 1635, and which he had disgraced for five years by his cruelties and his

crimes.

§ Thy learned brother Allestree.] For this person, who is declared "to be a Homer to Jonson," see p. 81. The allusion is to the miserable doggrel which accompanied his almanacs, and which is yet retailed by his "Homeric" successors, Moore, Wing, &c.