Hold. What! afore the Prince! are you so rude and uncivil? Kecks. Why not afore the Prince? (worshipped might he be) I desire no better judge. Hold. No! and my Lord Chancery here? Do you know what you say? Go to, nurse, ha' done, and let the music have their play. You have made a joyful house here, i'faith; the glad lady within in the straw, I hope, has thanked you for her little Carl, the little christian-such a comfortable day as this will even make the father ready to make adventure for another, in my conscience. Sing sweetly, I pray you, an you have a good breast, out with it for my lord's credit. SONG. If now as merry you could be As you are welcome here, Who wait would have no time to see But you that deign the place and lord Where if, by' engaging of his heart He yet could set forth more, All had been had that could be wished Duggs. How, dame! a dry nurse better than a wet nurse? Kecks. Ay. Is not summer better than winter? Duggs. O, you dream of a dry summer. Kecks. And you are so wet, you are the worse again. Do you remember my Lady Kickingup's child, that you gave such a bleach to 'twas never clear since? Duggs. That was my Lady Kickingup's own doing (you dry chip you), and not mine. Kecks. 'Twas yours, Mrs. Wetter-and you shrunk in the wetting for't, if you be remembered; for she turned you away, I am sure. Wet moons, you know, were ever good weed-springers. Duggs. My moon's no wetter than thine, goody Caudle-maker. You for making of costly caudles, as good a nurse as I ! Hold. Why, can I carry no sway nor stroke among you! Will ye open yourselves thus, and let every one enter into secrets?-Shall they take it up between you in God's name? Proffer it 'em. I am nobody, I, I know nothing !—I am a midwife of this month! I never held a lady's back till now, you think. Duggs. We never thought so, Mistress Holdback. Hold. Go to, you do think so, upon that point, and say as much in your behaviour. Who, I pray you, provided your places for you? was't not I? When upon the first view of my lady's breasts, and an inspection of what passed from her, with the white wine, and the opal cloud, and my suffumigation.-I told her ladyship at first she was sped, and then upon her pain after drinking the mead and hydromel, I assured her it was so without all peradventure-I know nothing! And this, when my lord was deportunate with me to know my opinion whether it was a boy of a girl that her ladyship went withal, I had not my signs and my prognostics about me→→→ as the goodness of her ladyship's comFlexion, the coppidness of her belly, on the right side, the lying of it so high in the cabinet, to pronounce it a boy! Nor I could not say and assure upon the difference of the paps, when the right breast grew harder, the nipple red, rising like a strawberry, the milk white and thick, and standing in pearls upon my nail (the glass and the slide-stone); a boy for my money! nor when the milk dissolved not in water, nor scattered, but sunk-a boy still! No, upon the very day of my lady's labour, when the wives came in, I offered no wagers, not the odds, ay, three to one? Having observed the moon the night before, and her ladyship set her right foot foremost, the right pulse beat quicker and stronger, and her right eye grown and sparkling! I assure your lordship I offered to hold master doctor a Discretion it was a boy; and if his doctorship had laid with me and ventured, his worship had lost his discretion. Kecks. Why, mistress, here's nobody calls your skill in question; we know that you can tell when a woman goes with a tympany, the mole, or the mooncalf. Hold. Ay, and whether it be the flesh mole, or the wind mole, or the water mole, I thank God, and our mistress Nature : she is God's chambermaid, and the midwife is hers.We can examine virginity and frigidity, the sufficiency and capability of the persons; by our places we urge all the conclusions. Many a good thing passes through the midwife's hand, many a merry tale by her mouth, many a glad cup through her lips: she is a leader of wives, the lady of light hearts, and the queen of the gossips. Kecks. But what this to us, Mistress Holdback? the which is the better nurse, the wet or the dry? Hold. Nay, that make an end of between yourselves. I am sure I am dry with talking to you. Give me a cup of hippo cras. Duggs. Why, see there now whether dryness be not a defect out of her own mouth, that she is fain to call for moisture to wet her! Does not the infant do so when it would suck? What stills the child when it's dry but the teat? Duggs. How enviously she talks!- as if any nearer or nobler office could be done the child than to feed him, or any more necessary and careful than to increase that which is his nutriment, from both which I am truly and principally named his nurse. Kecks. Principally! O the pride of thy paps! Would I were the ague in thy breasts, for thy sake, to bore 'em as full of holes as a cullender-as if there were no nutriment but thy milk, or nothing could nurse a child but sucking! Why, if there were no milk in nature, is there no other food?-How were my lady provided else against your going to men, if the toy should take you, and the corruption of your milk that way? Duggs. How! I go to man, and corrupt my milk, thou dried eel-skin! Kecks. You, mistress wet-eel-by-the-tail, if you have a mind to it. Such a thing has been done. rence. Ah, the pity such a one should ever come about any good body's child ! thou 'lt stifle it with thy breath one of these morn Kecks. But when it is wet, in the blankets, with your superfluities, what quiets it then? It is not the two bottles at the breasts, that when you have emptied you do nothing but Duggs. I defy thee, I, thou onion-eater ! drink to fill again, will do it. It is the And, now I think on't, my lady shall know opening of him, and bathing of him, and of your close diet, your cheese and chibthe washing and the cleansing, and espe-bols, with your fresh tripe and garlick in cially the drying that nourishes the child-private, it makes a sweet perfume i' the clearing his eyes and nostrils, wiping his nursery! as if you had swallowed surreveears, fashioning his head with stroking it between the hands, clapping a piece of scarlet on his mole, forming his mouth for kissing again he come at age, careful lay-ings. ing his legs and arms straight, and swath- Kecks. Indeed you had like to have ing them so justly as his mother's maids overlaid it the other night, and prevented may leap at him when he bounces out on its Christendom, if I had not looked unto his blankets. These are the offices of a you when you came so bedewed out of the nurse!—a true nurse. What beauty would wine cellar, and so watered your couch, ever behold him hereafter if I now by neg-that, to save your credit with my lady next ligence of binding should either make him morning, you were glad to lay it upon your cramp-shouldered, crooked-legged, splay-innocent bed-fellow, and slander him to his footed, or by careless placing the candle in mother how plentifully he had sucked! This a light should send him forth into the world was none of your dry feasts now, this was a with a pair of false eyes! No, 'tis the nurse, soaker. and by excellence the dry nurse, that gives him fashionable feet, legs, hands, mouth, eyes, nose, or whatever, in member else, is acceptable to ladies. Duggs. Nay, there you wrong Mistress Holdback, for it is she that gives him measure, I'm sure. Hold. Ay, by my faith, was't; an you overflow so it is even time to stop the breach and pack you both hence- here comes a wise man will tell us another tale. Enter a Mathematician.1 'Tis clear, in heaven all good aspects agree Hold. Ay, and I'll justify his measure. To bless with wonder this nativity; Duggs. And what increases that mea- But what needs this so far our star extend sure, but his milk, his sucking, and his bat-When here a star shines that doth far tening? transcend Kecks. Yes, and your eating and drink-In all benevolence, and sways more power ing to get more; your decoctions and To rule his whole life, than that star his caudles, spurging, bathing, and boxing hour? your breasts;-thou mis-proud creature, I am ashamed of thee ! 'i.c. an astrologer. For in a prince are all things, since they all To him as to their end in nature fall, As from him being their fount, all are produced, Heaven's right through his, where'er he rules, diffused : This child then from his bounty shall receive, Judgment in all things, what to take or leave; Matter to speak, and sharpness to dispute Of every action, both the root and fruit, Truly foreseeing in his each fit deed, Wisdom to attempt and spirit to proceed; In mirth ingenious he shall be, in game He shall gain favour, in things serious, fame. Dissensions shall he shun and peace pursue, Friendships, by frailties broke, he shall re And up comes her tail Ay, and rather than fail, She lets fly at them both with that, And her drum it goes twiddle-dum-twat: But they beat her with many a thump; And now to assuage The height of her rage They are cooling her down at the pump! The Watermen of Black Friars are then introduced into the Hall, with a SONG. They say it is merry when gossips do meet, And more to confirm it, in us you may see't, For we have well tasted the wine in the street, And yet we make shift to stand on our feet. As soon as we heard the Prince would be here, We knew by his coming we should have good cheer; A boy for my lady !-then every year, Now, Luck, we beseech thee that all things may stand With my lady's good liking, that my lord takes in hand; That still there come gossips the best in the land To make the Black Friars compare with the That we may say The like will be To sample he, While working the Thames Unless't be a James! A SONG. Fresh as the day, and new as are the hours, To crown the years, which you begin, great king, And you with them, as father of our spring. TO THE MOST NOBLE AND ABOVE HIS TITLES, ROBERT, EARLE of SomerSET. [SENT TO HIM ON HIS WeddingDAY, 1613.] [These lines, first printed in Notes and Queries, 1st S. vol. v. p. 193, were found in the poet's autograph, pasted into the "virtuous Somerset's" own copy of the 1640 folio, headed by the following inscription, "These verses were made by the author of this book, and were delivered to the Earl of Somerset upon his Lordship's weddingday." Gifford, see ante, p. 18, was not aware of the existence of these lines when he says, "it is to Jonson's praise that he took no part in the celebration of this marriage." The allusions to "The Wife" which "thy friend did make," have a terrible significance when the fate of Sir Thomas Overbury is remembered.-F. C.] They are not those, are present with their face, And clothes, and gifts, that only do thee grace At these thy nuptials; but whose heart, and thought Do wait upon thee: and their Love not bought. Such wear true Wedding robes, and are true Friends, That bid God give thee joy, and have no ends W'h I do, early, virtuous Somerset, And pray thy joys as lasting be as great. Not only this but every day of thine With the same look, or with a better shine. May she, whom thou for spouse to-day dost take, Outbee that Wife in worth thy friend did make : H H AN EPIGRAM TO MY JOVIAL GOOD FRIEND MR. ROBERT DOVER, ON HIS GREAT INSTAURATION OF HIS HUNTING AND DANCING AT COTSWOLD. [From the Annalia Dubrensia, "a collection of encomiastic verses,' says Mr. Bolton Corney, "somewhat like those on Sidney, or Bodley, or Camden-composed and published in honour of Mr. Robert Dover, the founder of an annual meeting for rustic sports upon the Cotswold Hills, in the reign of James I. The volume, small 4to, is dated 1636, and contains the effusions of more than thirty poets."---See Notes and Queries, 3rd S. ix. 100.] I cannot bring my muse to drop vies1 "Twixt Cotswold and the Olympic exer PREFIXED TO FARNABY'S JUVENAL. [Jonson had a high opinion of Farnaby as an editor; see the inscription in a copy of his Martial, given in a note, vol. i. p. li.; and also the text at the same place for Farnaby's manly and eloquent recognition of Jonson's own merits.-F. C.] Temporibus lux magna fuit Juvenalis avitis, Temporis et tenebras, ingenii radiis. Lux tua parva quidem mole est, sed magna rigore, Sensibus et docti pondere judicii. Macte: tuo scriptores, lectoresque labore Per te alii vigeant, per te alii videant. BEN JONSONIUS. To have your freedom? For their sakes forbear Unseemly holes in her soft skin to wear; But, if you must (as what worm can abstain ?) Taste of her tender body, yet refrain, With your disordered eatings, to deface her, And feed yourselves so as you most may grace her. First, through yon ear-tips see you work a pair Of holes, which as the moist enclosed air Turns into water, may the cold drops take And in her ears a pair of jewels make. That done, upon her bosom make your feast, Where, on a cross, carve Jesus in her breast. Have you not yet enough of that soft skin, The touch of which in times past might |