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a fine breast of his own! sir, you are a prelate of the order, I understand, and I have a terrible grudging now upon me to be one of your company; will your captain take a prentice, sir? I would bind myself to him, body and soul, either for one-andtwenty years, or as many lives as he would.

Clod. Ay, and put in my life for one, for I am come about too; I am sorry I had no more money i' my purse when you came first upon us, sir; if I had known you would have picked my pocket so like a gentleman, I would have been better provided; I shall be glad to venture a purse with your worship at any time you'll appoint, so you would prefer me to your captain; I'll put in security for my truth, and serve out my time, though I die to

morrow.

Cock. Ay, upon those terms, sir, and I hope your captain keeps better cheer than he made for the devil, for my stomach will ne'er agree with that diet, we'll be all his followers; I'll go home and fetch a little money, sir, all I have, and you shall pick my pocket to my face, and I'll avouch it: a man would not desire to have his purse pickt in better company.

Pup. Tut, they have other manner of gifts than picking of pockets, or telling fortunes. Cock. Ay, and if they would but please to shew them, or thought us poor country mortals worthy of them.

Pup. What might a man do to be a gentleman of your company, sir?

Cock. Ay, a gipsy in ordinary, or nothing.
Pat. Friends, not to refel ye,

Or any way quell ye,
To buy or to sell ye,
I only must tell ye,
Ye aim at a mystery,
Worthy a history;
There's much to be done,
Ere you can be a son,
Or a brother of the moon.
"Tis not so soon
Acquired, as desired.
You must be ben-bowsy,
And sleepy and drowsy,
And lazy, and lousy,
Before ye can rouse ye,
In shape that avows ye.
And then ye may stalk
The gipsies walk,

A fine breast of his own.] A phrase common to all the writers of Jonson's age, and constantly used as an equivalent for what is now termed a fine voice. It is needless to bring examples of so trite an expression.

To the coops and the pens,
And bring in the hens,
Though the cock be left sullen
For loss of the pullen :
Take turkey or capon,
And gammons of bacon,
Let nought be forsaken.
We'll let you go loose,
Like a fox to a goose,
And shew you the sty
Where the little pigs lie;
Whence if you can take
One or two, and not wake
The sow in her dreams,
But by the moonbeams
So warily hie,
As neither do cry ;
You shall the next day
Have licence to play
At the hedge a flirt,
For a sheet or a shirt:
If your hand be light,
I'll shew you the slight
Of our Ptolemy's knot.
It is, and 'tis not.

To change your complexion,
With the noble confection
Of walnuts and hog's-grease,
Better than dog's-grease:
And to milk the kine,
Ere the milkmaid fine
Hath opened her eyne;
Or if you desire
To spit or fart fire,
I'll teach you the knacks
Of eating of flax;
And out of your noses,
Draw ribands and posies.
As for example,
Mine own is as ample,
And fruitful a nose,
As a wit can suppose;
Yet it shall go hard,
But there will be spared,
Each of you a yard,
And worth your regard,
When the colour and size
Arrive at your eyes.
And if you incline
To a cup of good wine,
When you sup or dine;
If you chance it to lack,
Be it claret or sack;
I'll make this snout,
To deal it about,
Or this to run out

As it were from a spout.

Town. Admirable tricks, and he does them all se defendendo, as if he would not

be taken in the trap of authority by a frail fleshly constable.

Pup. Without the aid of a cheese.
Clod. Or help of a flitch of bacon.

Cock. Oh, he would chirp in a pair of stocks sumptuously; I'd give anything to see him play loose with his hands when his feet were fast.

Pup. O' my conscience he fears not that, an the marshal himself were here; I protest I admire him.

Pat. Is this worth your wonder!
Nay then you shall under-
Stand more of my skill.
I can (for I will)

Here at Burley o' the Hill
Give you all your fill,
Each Jack with his Gill,
And shew you the king,
The prince too, and bring
The gipsies were here,
Like lords to appear,
With such their attenders,
As you thought offenders,
Who now become new men,

You'll know them for true men;
For he we call chief,
I'll tell't ye in brief,
Is so far from a thief,
As he gives ye relief

With his bread, beer, and beef.
And 'tis not long sin'e
Ye drank of his wine,
And it made you fine;
Both claret and sherry,
Then let us be merry;
And help with your call,
For a hall, a hall!
Stand up to the wall,
Both good men, and tall,
We are one man's all.'
Omnes. A hall, a hall, a hall !

Enter the GIPSIES METAMORPHOSED, i.e. dressed in rich Habits, and Dance. Pat. Why now ye behold,

'Twas truth that I told,

As he gives ye relief, &c.] He speaks of the Captain (the Marquis of Buckingham). When the Masque was represented at Bever Castle, the following lines were used instead of those in the text:

"The fifth of August,
Will not let saw-dust
Lie in your throats,
Or cobwebs, or oats;
But help to scour ye.
This is no Gowry (a)
Has drawn James hither

And no device;

They are changed in a trice
And so will I

Be myself, by and by.
I only now

Must study how

To come off with a grace,
With my Patrico's place:
Some short kind of blessing,
Itself addressing

Unto my good master,
Which light on him faster,
Than wishes can fly.
And you that stand by
Be as jocund as I ;
Each man with his voice,
Give his heart to rejoice,
Which I'll requite,

If my art hit right.
Though late now at night,
Each clown here in sight,
Before daylight,

Shall prove a good knight;
And your lasses, pages
Worthy their wages,

Where fancy engages
Girls to their ages.

Clod. Oh, anything for the Patrico; what is't? what is't?

Pat. Nothing but bear the bob of the close, It will be no burthen you well may suppose, But bless the Sov'reign and his senses, And to wish away offences.

Clod. Let us alone, Bless the Sov'reign and his senses.

Pat. We'll take them in order as they have being,

And first of seeing.
From a gipsy in the morning,
Or a pair of squint eyes turning:
From the goblin and the spectre,
Or a drunkard, though with nectar;
From a woman true to no man,
Which is ugly besides common;
A smock rampant, and the itches
To be putting on the breeches:
Wheresoe'er they have their being,

But the goodman of Bever,
Our Buckingham's father;
Then so much the rather
Make it a jolly night,
For 'tis a holy night;
Spight of the constable,
Or Mas dean of Dunstable."

(a) The fifth of AugustThis is no Gowry

Has drawn James hither.] The Gowries conspiracy was on the fifth of August, 1600.

Cho. Bless the Sovereign and his SEEING.
Pat. From a fool, and serious toys;

From a lawyer, three parts noise:
From impertinence, like a drum
Beat at dinner in his room;
From a tongue without a file,
Heaps of phrases and no style.
From a fiddle out of tune,
As the cuckow is in June,1

From the candlesticks of Lothbury,2
And the loud pure wives of Banbury;
Or a long pretended fit,

Meant for mirth, but is not it; Only time and ears out-wearing. Cho. Bless the Sovereign and his HEAR

ING.

Pat. From a strolling tinker's sheet,
Or a pair of carrier's feet:
From a lady that doth breathe
Worse above than underneath;
From the diet, and the knowledge
Of the students in Bears-college;
From tobacco, with the type
Of the devil's glyster-pipe;

Or a stink all stinks excelling,

From a fishmonger's stale dwelling: Cho. Bless the Sovereign and his SMELL

ING.

Pat. From an oyster and fried fish,
A sow's baby in a dish ;3
From any portion of a swine,
From bad venison, and worse wine;
Ling, what cook soe'er it boil,
Though with mustard sauced and oil,
Or what else would keep man fasting,
Cho. Bless the Sovereign and his TASTING.
Pat. Both from birdlime, and from pitch,
From a doxy and her itch;
From the bristles of a hog,
Or the ringworm in a dog;
From the courtship of a briar,
Or St. Anthony's old fire:

1 From a fiddle out of tune,

As the cuckow is in June.] The dissonant note of the cuckow in this month is thus alluded to by Shakspeare:

"So when he had occasion to be seen,

He was but as the cuckow is in June,
Heard, not regarded."-Hen. IV.

2 From the candlesticks of Lothbury.] This expression will be best illustrated by a quotation from Stow's Survey of London: "The street of Lothbury is possessed (for the most part) by founders that cast candlesticks, chaffing-dishes, spice-mortars, and such like copper or laten works, and doe afterwards turne them with the foot, and not with the wheele, to make them smooth and bright with turning and scrating (as some do term it), making a lothsome noise to the by-passers, and therefore disdainfully called

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Jack. The sports are done, yet do not let Your joys in sudden silence set; Delight and dumbness never met

In one self-subject yet. If things opposed must mixt appear, Then add a boldness to your fear,

And speak a hymn to him, Where all your duties do of right belong, Which I will sweeten with an under-song. Captain. Glory of ours, and grace of all the earth;

How well your figure doth become your birth!

As if your form and fortune equal stood,
And only virtue got above your blood.

SONG 2.

Jack. Virtue, his kingly virtue, which did merit

This isle entire, and you are to inherit. 4 Gipsy. How right he doth confess him in his face,

by them 'Lothberie,' p. 287. Banbury has been already noticed as being chiefly inhabited by Puritans, vol. ii. p. 142.

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8 A sow's baby in a dish.] Three things to which James had a great dislike; and with which, he said, he would treat the devil were he to invite him to a dinner, were a pig, a poll of ling with mustard, and a pipe of tobacco for digesture."-Witty Apothegms delivered by James I. &c. 12mo, 1671.

Or a foul day. There was nothing James bore so impatiently as this, whenever it interfered with his hunting. This was pretty nearly the case with those of his followers who were much attached to the chase, I believe. king sometimes relieved his ill humour by a sonnet: whether they tried the efficacy of a little poetry on themselves is not said.

The

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kind, sir:

You have beheld (and with delight), their change,

And how they came transformed may think it strange ;

It being a thing not touched at by our poet, Good Ben slept there or else forgot to shew it: But lest it prove like wonder to the sight, To see a gipsy, as an Ethiop, white, Know, that what dy'd our faces was an ointment

Made and laid on by Master Wolfe's appointment,

The court Lycanthropos; yet without spells
By a mere barber, and no magic else,
It was fetched off with water and a ball;
And to our transformation, this is all,
Save what the master fashioner calls his :
For to a gipsy's metamorphosis,
Who doth disguise his habit and his face,
And takes on a false person by his place,
The power of poetry can never fail her,
Assisted by a barber and a tailor.

The Masque of Augurs.

WITH THE SEVERAL ANTIMASQUES.

Presented on Twelfth-night, 1622-23

THE MASQUE OF AUGURS.] From the folio 1641, where it is wretchedly printed. Every page that I turn over in this volume renews my regret at the remissness of Jonson in not giving these little pieces himself to the press. In this, as in everything else, his character has been misrepresented. He is constantly spoken of as extremely jealous of the fate of his works, as tremblingly alive to the accuracy of his page; whereas nothing is so certain as that for the greatest part of his dramatic career, he was as careless of their appearance as any of his contemporaries, not excepting Shakspeare. Want itself could not drive him to the revision and publication of a single drama; and for the long space of twenty years (i.e., from the appearance of the first folio to his death), he gave nothing to the press (unless Love's Triumph, or Chloridia was published by him, which I can scarcely believe), but the New Inn, to which he was compelled by the triumphant ridicule of his enemies, who represented that unfortunate piece as worse perhaps than it really was.

A new whim has seized the editors in this place, and they have given the dramatis persona or "presenters of the first Antimasque."

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SCENE.-The Court Buttery-hatch.

Enter NOTCH and SLUG.

Notch. Come, now my head's in, I'll even venture the whole: I have seen the lions ere now, and he that hath seen them may see the king.

Slug. I think he may; but have a care you go not too nigh, neighbour Notch, lest you chance to have a tally made on your pate, and be clawed with a cudgel; there is as much danger going too near the king, as the lions.

Enter Groom of the Revels.
Groom. Whither, whither now, game-
VOL. III.

sters? what is the business, the affair? stop, I beseech you.

Notch. This must be an officer or nothing, he is so pert and brief in his demands: a pretty man! and a pretty man is a little o' this side nothing; howsoever we must not be daunted now, I am sure I am a greater man than he out of the court, and I have lost nothing of my size since I came to it.

Groom. Hey-da! what's this? a hogshead of beer broke out of the king's buttery, or some Dutch hulk! whither are you bound? the wind is against you, you must back; do you know where you are?

Notch. Yes, sir, if we be not mistaken,

M

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