Chapter XXIII: Preface

John Still, the reputed author of this play, was the only son of William Still, Esq. of Grantham, in Lincolnshire, and was born in or about 1543. In 1559 he matriculated as a pensioner in Christ's College, Cambridge, proceeded B.A. in 1561-2, and was elected M.A. in 1565. In 1570 he was presented to the rectory of St Martin Outwich, London, and in the same year proceeded B.D. On the 30th July 1571, Archbishop Parker collated Still to the rectory of Hadleigh, in Suffolk, and in 1572 the primate, to whom he was chaplain, appointed him, with Dr Watts, Joint-Dean of Bocking. Other church preferments followed in quick succession; but this is perhaps scarcely a place for entering at large into biographical particulars, more especially as the authorship of the drama is a little uncertain. We must content ourselves with noting his gradual rise from the deanery of Bocking to the canonry at Westminster, the mastership of St John's College, Cambridge, the vice-chancellorship of the university on two occasions, the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge, and finally, the bishopric of Bath and Wells, to which last dignity he was named 16 January 1592-3. He died at the episcopal palace at Wells, February 26, 1607-8, and was buried, on the 4th April following, in the cathedral, where a handsome monument was erected to his memory. He was twice married, and left behind him several children. His excellent character is attested by Sir John Harington, who says that he was a man "to whom I never came but I grew more religious, and from whom I never went but I parted more instructed." The comedy of "Gammer Gurton's Needle," the only dramatic product of his pen of which we have any knowledge, was "played on stage, in Christ's College, Cambridge," in the year 1566, and the following entry from the bursars' books of that college, on the occasion, manifests that the authorities applied themselves to its production with spirit. "Item, for the Carpenters setting upp the Scaffold at the plaie xxd.[181]" At this time, Mr Still was twenty-three years old; but an entry in the registers of the Stationers' Company, under the year 1563, is considered by Mr Collier to have very possible reference to the present comedy, and, in this case, the young clergyman would have begun, and ended, his authorship ere he was nineteen: "Received of Thomas Colwell for his lycense for pryntinge of a play intituled Dyccon of Bedlam, iiijd." There is no such play, Mr Collier points out, as "Dyccon of Bedlam," but Diccon of Bedlam is a principal character in "Gammer Gurton's Needle;" and it is further to be observed that Thomas Colwell is the same publisher, "at the sygne of S. John Evangelist, beneth the Conduit in Fleetestreat," by whom the earliest known edition of the present comedy was produced. The circumstance, after all, is as inconclusive as the fact is immaterial. The true subject of regret is, not that we cannot determine precisely whether Still wrote comedy when he was nineteen, or when he was twenty-three, but that having written one play so well, he did not write more. Had he so elected to do, indeed, the See of Bath and Wells might not have seen the name of Still in its _Catena Episcoporum_, but the other prelate would, doubtless, have done his duty, and English readers would have been amused with further Gammer Gurtons.

"Gammer Gurton's Needle," acted at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1566, "has," writes Mr Collier, "this peculiarity belonging to it, that it is the first existing play acted at either university; and it is a singular coincidence, that the author of the comedy so represented should be the very person who, many years afterwards, when he had become Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, was called upon to remonstrate with the Ministers of Queen Elizabeth against having an English play performed before her at that university, as unbefitting its learning, dignity, and character."[182] Of the play itself Hazlitt writes: "It is a regular comedy in five acts, built on the circumstance of an old woman having lost her needle, which throws the whole village into confusion, till it is at last providentially found sticking in an unlucky part of Hodge's dress. This must evidently have happened at a time when the manufacturers of Sheffield and Birmingham had not reached the height of perfection which they have at present done. Suppose that there is only one sewing-needle in a parish, that the owner, a diligent, notable old dame, loses it; that a mischief-making wag sets it about that another old woman has stolen this valuable instrument of household industry; that strict search is made in-doors for it in vain, and that then the incensed parties sally forth to scold it out in the open air, till words end in blows, and the affair is referred over to higher authorities; and we shall have an exact idea (though perhaps not so lively a one) of what passes in this authentic document between Gammer Gurton and her gossip Dame Chat; Diccon, the bedlam (the causer of these harms); Hodge, Gammer Gurton's servant; Tib, her maid; Cock, her prentice boy; Doll; Scapethrift; Master Baillie, his master; Doctor Rat, the curate; and Gib the cat, who may be fairly reckoned one of the _dramatis personæ_, and performs no mean part." "Such," observes the same critic, further on, characterising the comedy, "Such was the wit, such was the mirth of our ancestors--homely, but hearty; coarse, perhaps, but kindly; let no man despise it; for "evil to him that evil thinks." To think it poor and beneath notice, because it is not just like ours, is the same sort of hypercriticism that was exercised by the person who refused to read some old books because they were "such very poor spelling." The meagreness of their literary or their bodily fare was at least relished by themselves; and this is better than a surfeit or an indigestion. It is refreshing to look out of ourselves sometimes, not to be always holding the glass to our own peerless perfections; and as there is a dead wall which always intercepts the prospect of the future from our view (all that we can see beyond it is the heavens), it is as well to direct our eyes now and then without scorn to the page of history; and repulsed in our attempts to penetrate the secrets of the next six thousand years, not to turn our backs on old long syne."[183]

This entertaining old piece is mentioned in "Histriomastix," 1610, act ii. (sign. C. 3), under the title of "Mother Gurton's Needle," and in burlesque it is there called "a Tragedy."

The present edition of "Gammer Gurton's Needle" is printed from that of 1575.

THE NAMES OF THE SPEAKERS IN THIS COMEDY.

DICCON[184], _the Bedlam_.[185]

HODGE, _Gammer Gurton's Servant_.

TIB, _Gammer Gurton's Maid_.

GAMMER GURTON.

COCK, _Gammer Gurton's Boy_.

DAME CHAT.

DOCTOR RAT, _the Curate_.

MASTER BAILY.

DOLL, _Dame Chat's Maid_

SCAPETHRIFT, _Master Baily's Servant_.

_Mutes._

FOOTNOTES:

[181] ["Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute," iii., 130.]

[182] "Annals of the Stage," ii. 463.

[183] "Lectures on the Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth,"
1820, p. 208.

[184] The ancient abbreviation of Richard.

[185] After the dissolution of the religious houses where the poor of
every denomination were provided for, there was for many years no
settled or fixed provision made to supply the want of that care, which
those bodies appear always to have taken of their distressed brethren.
In consequence of this neglect, the idle and dissolute were suffered
to wander about the country, assuming such characters as they imagined
were most likely to insure success to their frauds, and security from
detection. Among other disguises, many affected madness, and were
distinguished by the name of _Bedlam Beggars_. These are mentioned by
Edgar in "King Lear:"--

"The country gives me proof and precedent,
Of bedlam beggars who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numbed and mortified bare arms,
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary,
And with this horrible object from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometimes with prayers,
Enforce their charity."

In Dekker's "Belman of London" [1608] all the different species of
beggars are enumerated. Amongst the rest mentioned "Tom of Bedlam's"
band of madcaps; otherwise called Poor Tom's flock of wild geese or
hair-brains, are called Abraham men. An Abraham man is afterwards
described in this manner: "Of all the mad rascalls (that are of this
wing) the _Abraham-man_ is the most phantastick. The fellow (quoth
this old lady of the Lake vnto me) that sat halfe naked (at table to
day) from the girdle vpward, is the best _Abraham-man_ that euer came
to my house, & the notablest villaine: he sweares he hath bin in
bedlam, and will talke frantickly of purpose: you see pinns stuck in
sundry places of his naked flesh, especially in his armes, which paine
hee gladly puts himselfe to (beeing indeede no torment at all, his
skin is either so dead with some fowle disease, or so hardened with
weather) onley to make you beleeue he is out of his wits: he calls
himselfe by the name of _Poore Tom_, and comming neere any body cryes
out, Poore Tom is a cold. Of these _Abraham-men_, some be exceeding
mery, and doe nothing but sing songs, fashioned out of their owne
braines, some will dance; others will doe nothing but either laugh or
weepe; others are dogged, and are sullen both in looke and speech,
that, spying but small company in a house, they boldly and bluntly
enter, compelling the servants through feare to giue them what they
demaund, which is commonly _bacon_, or something that will yielde
ready mony." [Edit. 1608, sign. D 2.] Of this respectable fraternity
Diccon seems to have been a member. Massinger mentions them in "A New
Way to Pay Old Debts," act ii., sc. 1: "Are they padders, or
_Abraham-men_, that are your consorts?"