Chapter VIII: Appendix: Notes, Illustrations, Various Readings, and Emendations of Text (1)

(NOW FIRST ADDED.)

Arranged in Four Parts:—

1.—_Choyce Drollery_, 1656.

2.—_Antidote against Melancholy_, 1661.

3.—_Westminster-Drollery_, 1674.

4.—_Merry Drollery_, 1661; and Additional Notes to 1670-1691
editions: with Index.

Readers, who have accompanied the Editor both in text and comment throughout these three volumes of Reprints from the _Drolleries of the Restoration_, can scarcely have failed to see that he has desired to present the work for their study with such advantages as lay within his reach. Certainly, he never could have desired to assist in bringing these rare volumes into the hands of a fresh generation, if he believed not that their few faults were far outweighed by their merits; and that much may be learnt from both of these. Every antiquary is well aware that during the troubled days of the Civil War, and for the remaining years of the seventeenth century, books were printed with such an abundance of typographical errors that a pure text of any author cannot easily be recovered. In the case of all unlicensed publications, such as anonymous pamphlets, _facetiæ_, broad-sheet Ballads, and the more portable _Drolleries_, these imperfections were innumerable. Dropt lines and omitted verses, corrupt readings and perversions of meaning, sometimes amounting to a total destruction of intelligibility, might drive an Editor to despair.

In regard to the _Drolleries_-literature, especially, if we remember, as we ought to do, the difficulties and dangers attendant on the printing of these political squibs and pasquinades, we shall be less inclined to rail at the original collector, or “author,” and printers. If we ourselves, as Editor, do our best to examine such other printed books and manuscripts of the time, as may assist in restoring what for awhile was corrupted or lost from the text (_keeping these corrections and additions clearly distinguished, within square brackets, or in Appendix Notes_ to each successive volume), we shall find ourselves more usefully employed than in flinging stones at the Cavaliers of the Restoration, because they left behind them many a doubtful reading or an empty flaggon.

We have given back, to all who desire to study these invaluable records of a memorable time, four complete unmutilated works (except twenty-seven necessarily dotted words): and we could gladly have furnished additional information regarding each and all of these, if further delay or increased bulk had not been equally inexpedient.

1.—In _Choyce Drollery_, 1656, are seen such fugitive pieces of poetry as belong chiefly to the reign of Charles 1st., and to the eight years after he had been judicially murdered.

2.—In _Merry Drollery_, 1661, and in the _Antidote against Melancholy_ of the same date, we receive an abundant supply of such Cavalier songs, ballads, lampoons or pasquinades, social and political, as may serve to bring before us a clear knowledge of what was being thought, said, and done during the first year of the Restoration; and, indeed, a reflection of much that had gone recently before, as a preparation for it.

3.—In such _additional_ matter as came to view in the _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, of 1670 (N.B., precisely the same work as what we have reprinted, from the 1691 edition, in our second volume); and still more in the delightful _Westminster-Drolleries_ of 1671, 1672, and 1674, we enjoy the humours of the Cavaliers at a later date: Songs from theatres as well as those in favour at Court, and more than a few choice pastorals and ditties of much earlier date, lend variety to the collection.

We could easily have added another volume; but enough has surely been done in this series to show how rich are the materials. Let us increase the value of all, before entering in detail on our third series of Appendix Notes, by giving entirely the deeply-interesting Address to the Reader, written and published in 1656 (exactly contemporary with our _Choyce Drollery_), by Abraham Wright, for his rare collection of University Poems, known as “_Parnassus Biceps_.”

It is “An Epistle in the behalfe of those now doubly-secluded
and sequestered Members, by one who himselfe is none.”

[Sheet sig. A 2.]

“To the Ingenuous
READER.

SIR,

These leaves present you with some few drops of that Ocean
of Wit, which flowed from those two brests of this Nation,
the _Universities_; and doth now (the sluces being puld up)
overflow the whole Land: or rather like those Springs of
Paradice, doth water and enrich the whole world; whilst the
Fountains themselues are dryed up, and that Twin-Paradise
become desart. For then were these Verses Composed, when
_Oxford_ and _Camebridge_ were Universities, and a Colledge [A
2, _reverso_] more learned then a Town-Hall, when the Buttery
and Kitchin could speak Latine, though not Preach; and the very
irrational Turnspits had so much knowing modesty, as not to
dare to come into a Chappel, or to mount any Pulpits but their
own. Then were these Poems writ, when peace and plenty were
the best Patriots and Mæcenasses to great Wits; when we could
sit and make Verses under our own Figtrees, and be inspired
from the juice of our own Vines: then, when it was held no
sin for the same man to be both a Poet, and a Prophet; and to
draw predictions no lesse from his Verse then his Text. Thus
you shall meet here St. _Pauls_ Rapture in a Poem, and the
fancy as high and as clear as the third Heaven, into which
[A. 3] that Apostle was caught up: and this not onely in the
ravishing expressions and extasies of amorous Composures and
Love Songs; but in the more grave Dorick strains of sollid
Divinity: Anthems that might have become _Davids_ Harpe, and
_Asaphs_ Quire, to be sung, as they were made, with the Spirit
of that chief Musitian. Againe, In this small Glasse you may
behold your owne face, fit your own humors, however wound up
and tuned; whether to the sad note, and melancholy look of a
disconsolate Elegy, or those more sprightly jovial Aires of an
Epithalamium, or Epinichion. Further, would you see a Mistresse
of any age, or face, in her created, or uncreated complexion:
this mirrour presents you with more shapes then a Conjurers
[_verso_] Glasse, or a Limner’s Pencil. It will also teach
you how to court that Mistresse, when her very washings and
pargettings cannot flatter her; how to raise a beauty out of
wrinkles fourscore years old, and to fall in love even with
deformity and uglinesse. From your Mistresse it brings you to
your God; and (as it were some new Master of the Ceremonies)
instructs you how to woe, and court him likewise; but with
approaches and distances, with gestures and expressions
suitable to a Diety [Deity]; addresses clothed with such a
sacred filial horror and reverence, as may invite and embolden
the most despairing condition of the saddest gloomy Sinner;
and withall dash out of countenance the greatest confidence
of the most glorious Saint: and not with that blasphemous
familiarity [A. 4] of our new enlightened and inspired men,
who are as bold with the Majesty and glory of that Light
that is unapproachable, as with their own _ignes fatui_; and
account of the third Person in the blessed Trinity for no more
then their Fellow-Ghost; thinking him as much bound to them
for their vertiginous blasts and whi[r]le-winds, as they to
him for his own most holy Spirit. Your Authors then of these
few sheets are Priests, as well as Poets; who can teach you
to pray in verse, and (if there were not already too much
phantasticknes in that Trade) to Preach likewise: while they
turn Scripture-chapters into Odes, and both the Testaments
into one book of Psalmes: making _Parnassus_ as sacred as
Mount _Olivet_, and the nine Muses no lesse religious then a
Cloyster of Nuns. [_verso_.] But yet for all this I would not
have thee, _Courteous Reader_, pass thy censure upon those
two Fountains of Religion and Learning, the _Universities_,
from these few small drops of wit, as hardly as some have done
upon the late _Assemblies_ three-half-penny Catechisme: as if
all their publick and private Libraries, all their morning
and evening watchings, all those pangs and throwes of their
Studies, were now at length delivered but of a Verse, and
brought to bed onely of five feet, and a Conceit. For although
the judicious modesty of these men dares not look the world
in the face with any of _Theorau Johns_ Revelations, or those
glaring New-lights that have muffled the Times and Nation with
a greater confusion and darknes, then ever benighted [A. 5]
the world since the first Chaos: yet would they please but to
instruct this ignorant Age with those exact elaborate Pieces,
which might reform Philosophy without a Civil War, and new
modell even Divinity its selfe without the ruine of either
Church, or State; probably that most prudent and learned Order
of the Church of _Rome_, the _Jesuite_, should not boast
more sollid, though more numerous Volum[e]s in this kind.
And of this truth that Order was very sensible, when it felt
the rational Divinity of one single _Chillingworth_ to be an
unanswerable twelve-years-task for all their English Colledges
in Chrisendome. And therefore that _Society_ did like its
selfe, when it sent us over a War instead of an Answer, and
proved us Hereticks by the Sword: which [_verso_] in the first
place was to Rout the _Universities_, and to teach our two
Fountains of Learning better manners, then for ever heareafter
to bubble and swell against the _Apostolick Sea_. And yet I
know not whether the depth of their Politicks might not have
advised to have kept those Fountains within their own banks,
and there to have dammd them and choakd them up with the mud
of the Times, rather then to have let those Protestant Streams
run, which perchance may effect that now by the spreading
Riverets, which they could never have done through the inclosed
Spring: as it had been a deeper State-piece and Reach in that
Sanedrim, the great Councell of the Jewish Nation, to have
confined the Apostles to _Jerusalem_, and there to have muzzeld
them [A 6] with Oaths, and Orders; rather then by a fruitful
Persecution to scatter a few Gospel Seeds, that would spring
up the Religion of the whole world: which had it been Coopd
within the walls of that City, might (for all they knew) in
few years have expired and given up the ghost upon the same
_Golgotha_ with its Master. And as then every Pair of Fishermen
made a Church and caught the sixt part of the world in their
Nets; so now every Pair of Ce[o]lledge-fellows make as many
several Universityes; which are truly so call’d, in that they
are Catholick, and spread over the face of the whole earth;
which stand amazed, to see not onely Religion, but Learning
also to come from beyond the _Alpes_; and that a poor despised
Canton and nook of the world should contain as much of each
[_verso_] as all the other Parts besides. But then, as when our
single Jesus was made an universall Saviour, and his particular
Gospel the Catholick Religion; though that Jesus and this
Gospel did both take their rise from the holy City; yet now no
City is more unholy and infidel then that; insomuch that there
is at this day scarce any thing to be heard of a Christ at
_Jerusalem_, more then that such a one was sometimes there, nor
any thing to be seen of his Gospel, more then a Sepulcher: just
so it is here with us; where though both Religion and Learning
do owe their growth, as well as birth, to those Nurseryes of
both, the Universityes; yet, since the Siens of those Nurseryes
have been transplanted, there’s little remaines in them now
(if they are not belyed) either of the old [A 7] Religion
and Divinity, more then its empty Chair & Pulpit, or of the
antient Learning & Arts, except bare Schools, and their gilded
Superscriptions: so far have we beggard our selves to enrich
the whole world. And thus, _Ingenuous Sir_, have I given you
the State and Condition of this _Poetick Miscellany_, as also
of the _Authors_; it being no more then some few slips of the
best Florists made up into a slender Garland, to crown them
in their Pilgrimage, and refresh thee in thine: if yet their
very Pilgrimage be not its selfe a Crown equall to that of
Confessors, and their Academicall Dissolution a Resurrection to
the greatest temporall glory: when they shall be approved of by
men and Angels for a chosen Generation, a Royal Priesthood, a
peculiar People. In the interim let this [_verso_] comfort be
held out to you, _our secluded University members_, by him that
is none; (and therefore what hath been here spoken must not be
interpreted as out of passion to my self, but meer zeal to my
Mother) that according to the generally received Principles
and Axioms of Policy, and the soundest Judgment of the most
prudential Statesmen upon those Principles, the date of your
sad Ostracisme is expiring, and at an end; but yet such an end,
as some of you will not embrace when it shall be offered; but
will chuse rather to continue Peripateticks through the whole
world, then to return, and be so in your own Colledges. For
as that great Councell of _Trent_ had a Form and Conclusion
altogether contrary to the expectation and desires of them that
procured it; so our great Councels of _England_ [A 8] (our
late Parliament) will have such a result, and Catastrophe, as
shall no ways answer the Fasts and Prayers, the Humiliations,
and Thanksgivings of their Plotters and Contrivers: such a
result I say, that will strike a palsie through Mr. _Pims_
ashes, make his cold Marble sweat; and put all those several
Partyes, and Actors, that have as yet appeard upon our tragical
bloudy Stage, to an amazed stand and gaze: when they shall
confess themselves (but too late) to be those improvident axes
and hammers in the hand of a subtle _Workman_; whereby he was
enabled to beat down, and square out our Church and State
into a Conformity with his own. And then it will appeare that
the great Worke, and the holy Cause, and the naked Arme, so
much talked of for [_verso_] these fifteen years, were but
the work, and the cause, and the arme of that _Hand_, which
hath all this while reached us over the _Alpes_; dividing,
and composing, winding us up, and letting us down, untill our
very discords have set and tuned us to such notes, both in our
Ecclesiastical, and Civill Government; as may soonest conduce
to that most necessary Catholick Unison and Harmony, which
is an essential part of Christs Church here upon Earth, and
the very Church its selfe in Heaven. And thus far, _Ingenuous
Reader_, suffer him to be a Poet in his Prediction, though not
in his Verse; who desires to be known so far to thee, as that
he is a friend to persecuted Truth and Peace; and thy most
affectionate Christian Servant,

_Ab: Wright_.”

(From _Parnassus Biceps: or, Severall Choice Pieces of POETRY,
composed by the best WITS that were in both the Universities
before their DISSOLUTION_. London: Printed for _George
Eversden_ at the Signe of the _Maidenhead_ in St. _Pauls_
Church-yard, 1656.)

1.—CHOYCE DROLLERY, 1656.

Note, on _The Address to the Reader_, &c.

The subscribed initials, “R. P.” are those of Robert Pollard; whose name appears on the title-page (which we reproduce), preceding his address. Excepting that he was a bookseller, dwelling and trading at the “Ben Jonson’s Head, behind the Exchange,” in business-connection with John Sweeting, of the Angel, in Pope’s Head Alley, in 1656; and that he had previously issued a somewhat similar Collection of Poems to the _Choyce Drollery_ (successful, but not yet identified), we know nothing more of Robert Pollard. The books of that date, and of that special class, are extremely rare, and the few existing copies are so difficult of access (for the most part in private possession, almost totally inaccessible except to those who know not how to use them), that information can only be acquired piecemeal and laboriously. Five years hence, if the Editor be still alive, he may be able to tell much more concerning the authors and the compilers of the _Restoration Drolleries_.

We are told that there is an extra leaf to _Choyce Drollery_, “only found in a few copies, containing ten lines of verse, beginning _Fame’s windy trump_, &c. This leaf occurs in one or two extant copies of _England’s Parnassus_, 1600. Many of the pieces found here are much older than the date of the book [viz., 1656]. It contains notices of many of our early poets, and, unlike some of its successors, is of intrinsic value. Only two or three copies have occurred.” (_W. C. H.’s Handb. Pop. Lit. G. B._, 1867, p. 168.) “Cromwell’s Government ordered this book to be burned.” (_Ibid._) On this last item see our Introduction, section first. J. P. Collier, who prepared the Catalogue of Richard Heber’s Collection, _Bibliotheca Heberiana_, Pt. iv., 1834 (a rich storehouse for bibliographical students, but not often gratefully acknowledged by them), thus writes of _Choyce Drollery_:—“This is one of the most intrinsically valuable of the _Drolleries_, if only for the sake of the very interesting poem in which characters are given of all the following Poets: Shakespeare, Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Chapman, Daborne, Sylvester, Quarles, May, Sands, Digges, Daniel, Drayton, Withers, Brown, Shirley, Ford, Middleton, Heywood, Churchyard, Dekker, Brome, Chaucer, Spencer, Basse, and finally John Shank, the Actor, who is said to have been famous for a jig. Other pieces are much older, and are here reprinted from previous collections” [mostly lost]. P. 90.

It is also known to J. O. Halliwell-Phillips; (but, truly, what is _not_ known to him?) See _Shakespeare Society’s Papers_, iii. 172, 1847.

In our copy of _England’s Parnassus_ (unindexed, save subjects), 1600, we sought to find “_Fame’s windy trump_.” [We hear that the leaf was in _E. P._ at Tite’s sale, 1874.]

As we have never seen a copy of _Choyce Drollery_ containing the passage of “ten lines,” described as beginning “Fame’s Windy Trump,” we cannot be quite certain of the following, from _England’s Parnassus_, 1600, being the one in question, but believe that it is so. Perhaps it ran, “_Fame’s Windy Trump, whatever sound out-flies_,” &c. There are twenty-seven lines in all. We distinguish the probable portion of “ten lines” by enclosing the other two parts in brackets:—

FAME.

[_A Monster swifter none is under sunne;_
_Encreasing, as in waters we descrie_
_The circles small, of nothing that begun,_
_Which, at the length, unto such breadth do come,_
_That of a drop, which from the skies doth fall,_
_The circles spread, and hide the waters all:_
_So Fame, in flight encreasing more and more;_
_For, at the first, she is not scarcely knowne,_
_But by and by she fleets from shore to shore,_
_To clouds from th’ earth her stature straight is growne._
_There whatsoever by her trumpe is blowne,_]

_The sound, that both by sea and land out-flies,_
_Rebounds againe, and verberates the skies._
_They say, the earth that first the giants bred,_
_For anger that the gods did them dispatch,_
_Brought forth this sister of those monsters dead,_
_Full light of foote, swift wings the winds to catch:_
_Such monsters erst did nature never hatch._
_As many plumes she hath from top to toe,_
_So many eyes them underwatch or moe;_
_And tongues do speake: so many eares do harke._

[_By night ’tweene heaven she flies and earthly shade,_
_And, shreaking, takes no quiet sleepe by darke:_
_On houses roofes, on towers, as keeper made,_
_She sits by day, and cities threates t’ invade;_
_And as she tells what things she sees by view,_
_She rather shewes that’s fained false, then true._]

[Legend of Albanact.] I. H., _Mirror of Magist_.

Page 1. _Deare Love, let me this evening dye._

This beautiful little love-poem re-appears, as Song 77, in _Windsor Drollery_, 1672, p. 63. (There had been a previous edition of that work, in 1671, which we have examined: it is not noted by bibliographers, and is quite distinct.) A few variations occur. Verse 2. are _wrack’d_; 3. In _love_ is not commended; _only_ sweet, All praise, _no_ pity; who _fondly_; 4. _Shall shortly_ by dead Lovers lie; _hallow’d_; 5. _He_ which _all others_ els excels, That _are_; 6. _Will_, though thou; 7. _the_ Bells _shall_ ring; _While_ all to _black is_; (last line but two in parenthesis;) Making, like Flowers, &c.

Page 4. _Nor Love nor Fate dare I accuse._

By RICHARD BROME, in his “_Northerne Lasse_,” 1632, Act ii., sc. 6. It is also given in _Westminster-Drollery_, 1671, i. 83 (the only song in common). But compare with it the less musical and tender, “_Nor Love, nor Fate can I accuse of hate_,” in same vol. ii. 90, with Appendix Note thereunto, p. lxiii.

Page 5. _One night the great ~Apollo~, pleased with ~Ben~._

This remarkable and little-known account of “THE TIME-POETS” is doubly interesting, as being a contemporary document, full of life-like portraiture of men whom no lapse of years can banish from us; welcome friends, whom we grow increasingly desirous of beholding intimately. Glad are we to give it back thus to the world; our chief gem, in its rough Drollery-setting: lifted once more into the light of day, from out the cobwebbed nooks where it so long-time had lain hidden. Our joy would have been greater, could we have restored authoritatively the lost sixteenth-line, by any genuine discovery among early manuscripts; or told something conclusive about the author of the poem, who has laid us under obligation for these vivid portraits of John Ford, Thomas Heywood, poor old Thomas Churchyard, and Ben’s courageous foeman, worthy of his steel, that Thomas Dekker who “followed after in a dream.”

In deep humility we must confess that nothing is yet learnt as to the authorship. Here, in the year 1656, almost at fore-front of _Choyce Drollery_, the very strength of its van-guard, appeared the memorable poem. Whether it were then and there for the first time in print, or borrowed from some still more rare and now-lost volume, none of us can prove. Even at this hour, a possibility remains that our resuscitation of _Choyce Drollery_ may help to bring the unearthing of explanatory facts from zealous students. We scarcely dare to cherish hope of this. Certainly we may not trust to it. For Gerard Langbaine knew the poem well, and quoted oft and largely from it in his 1691 _Account of the English Dramatick Poets_. But he met with it nowhere save in _Choyce Drollery_, and writes of it continually in language that proves how ignorant he was of whom we are to deem the author. Yet he wrote within five-and-thirty years behind the date of its appearance; and might easily have learnt, from men still far from aged, who had read the _Drollery_ on its first publication, whatever they could tell of “The Time-Poets:” if, indeed, they could tell anything. Five years earlier, William Winstanley had given forth his _Lives of the most famous English Poets_, in June, 1686; but he quotes not from it, and leaves us without an _Open Sesame_. Even Oldys could not tell; or Thomas Hearne, who often had remembered whatever Time forgot.

As to the date: we believe it was certainly written between 1620 (inclusive) and 1636; nearer the former year.

We reconcile ourselves for the failure, by turning to such other and similar poetic groupings as survive. We listen unto Richard Barnfield, when he sings sweetly his “Remembrance of some English Poets,” in 1598. We cling delightedly to the words of our noble Michael Drayton—whose descriptive map of native England, _Polyolbion_, glitters with varie-coloured light, as though it were a mediæval missal: to whom, enditing his Epistle to friend Henry Reynolds—“A Censure of the Poets”—the Muses brought each bard by turn, so that the picture might be faithful: even as William Blake, idealist and spiritual Seer, believed of spirit-likenesses in his own experience. And, not without deep feeling (marvelling, meanwhile, that still the task of printing them with Editorial care is unattempted), we peruse the folio manuscripts of that fair-haired minstrel of the Cavaliers, George Daniel of Beswick, while he also, in his “Vindication of Poesie,” sings in praise of those whose earlier lays are echoing now and always “through the corridors of Time:”—

_Truth speaks of old, the power of Poesie;_
_~Amphion~, ~Orpheus~, stones and trees could move;_
_Men, first by verse, were taught Civilitie;_
_’Tis known and granted; yet would it behove_
_Mee, with the Ancient Singers, here to crowne_
_Some later Quills, some Makers of our owne._

Nor should we fail to thank the younger Evelyn, for such graphic sketches as he gives of Restoration-Dramatists, of Cowley, Dryden, Wycherley, “Sedley and easy Etherege;” a new world of wits, all of whose works we prize, without neglecting for their sakes the older Masters who “so did take Eliza, and our James.”

Something that we could gladly say, will come in befittingly on after-pages of this volume, in the “Additional Note on Sir John Suckling’s ‘Sessions of the Poets,’” as printed in our _Merry Drollery, Compleat_, page 72.

* * * * *

Are we stumbling at the threshold, _absit omen!_ even amid our delight in perusing “the Time-Poets,” when we wonder at the precise meaning of the statement in our opening couplet?

_One night the great ~Apollo~, pleas’d with ~Ben~,_
_Made the odd number of the Muses ten._

By whom additional? Who is the lady, thus elevated? We see only one solution: namely, that furnished by the conclusion of the poem. It was the _Faerie Queene_ herself whom the God lifted thus, in honour of her English Poets, to rank as the Tenth Muse, an equal with Urania, Clio, Euterpe, and their sisterhood. Yet something seems wanting, next to it; for we never reach a full-stop until the end of the 39th (or _query_, the 40th) line; and all the confluent nominatives lack a common verbal-action. Our mind, it is true, accepts intelligibly the onward rush of each and all (but later, “with equal pace each of them softly creeps”). It may be only grammatical pedantry which craves some such phrase, absent from the text, as—

[_While throng’d around his comrades and his peers,_
_To list the ’sounding Music of the Spheres_:]

But, since a momentary rashness prompts us here to dare so much, as to imagine the _hiatus_ filled, let us suppose that the lost sixteenth-line ran someway thus (each reader being free to try experiments himself, with chance of more success):—

_Divine-composing ~Quarles~, whose lines aspire_
[_And glow, as doth with like etherial fire_] 16th.
_The April of all Poesy in ~May~,_
_Who makes our English speak ~Pharsalia~;_

It is with some timidity we let this stand: but, as the text is left intact, our friends will pardon us; and foes we never quail to meet. As to BEN JONSON, see our “Sessions,” in Part iv. Of BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, we write in the note on final page of _Choyce Drollery_, p. 100. Of “Ingenious SHAKESPEARE” we need say no more than give the lines of Richard Barnfield in his honour, from the _Poems in diuers humors_, 1598:—

A REMEMBRANCE OF SOME ENGLISH POETS.

_Liue ~Spenser~ euer, in thy ~Fairy Queene~:_
_Whose like (for deepe Conceit) was neuer seene._
_Crownd mayst thou bee, vnto thy more renowne,_
_(As King of Poets) with a Lawrell Crowne._

_And ~Daniell~, praised for thy sweet-chast Verse:_
_Whose Fame is grav’d in ~Rosamonds~ blacke Herse._
_Still mayst thou liue: and still be honored,_
_For that rare Worke, ~The White Rose and the Red~._

_And ~Drayton~, whose wel-written Tragedies_
_And sweet Epistles, soare thy fame to skies._
_Thy learned Name, is æquall with the rest;_
_Whose stately Numbers are so well addrest._

_And ~Shakespeare~ thou, whose hony-flowing Vaine,_
_(Pleasing the World) thy Praises doth obtaine._
_Whose ~Venus~, and whose ~Lucrece~ (sweete and chaste)_
_Thy Name in fames immortall Booke hath plac’t._
_Liue euer you, at least in Fame liue euer:_
_Well may the Bodye dye, but Fame dies neuer._

The praise of MASSINGER will not seem overstrained; although he never affects us with the sense of supreme genius, as does Marlowe. The recognition of GEORGE CHAPMAN’S grandeur, and the power with which this recognition is expressed, show how tame is the influence of Massinger in comparison. There need be little question that it was to Dekker’s mind and pen we owe the nobler portion of the Virgin Martyr. Massinger, when alongside of Marlow, Webster, and Dekker, is like Euripides contrasted with Æschylus and Sophocles. We think of him as a Playwright, and successful; but these others were Poets of Apollo’s own body-guard. Drayton sings:

_Next MARLOW, bathed in the ~Thespian~ springs,_
_Had in him those brave translunary things_
_That the first poets had, his raptures were_
_All air and fire, which made his verses clear;_
_For that fine madness still he did retain,_
_Which rightly should possess a poet’s brain._

ROBERT DABORNE is chiefly interesting to us from his connection in misfortunes and dramatic labours with Massinger and Nat Field; and as joining them in the supplication for advance of money from Philip Henslow, while they lay in prison. The reference to Daborne’s clerical, as well as to his dramatic vocation, and to his having died (in Ireland, we believe, leaving behind him sermons,) “Amphibion by the Ministry,” confirms the general belief.

JO: SYLVESTER’S translation of Du Bartas, 1621; THOMAS MAY’S of Lucan’s Pharsalia, GEORGE SANDYS’ of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, need little comment here; some being referred to, near the end of our volume.

DUDLEY DIGGES (1612-43), born at Chilham Castle, near Canterbury (now the seat of Charles S. Hardy, Esq.); son of Sir Dudley Digges, Master of the Rolls, wrote a reverent Elegy for _Jonsonus Virbius_, 1638. L[eonard] Digges had, fifteen years earlier, written the memorial lines beginning “Shake-speare, at length thy pious fellows give || The World thy Workes:” which appear at beginning of the first folio _Shakespeare_, 1623.

To SAMUEL DANIEL’S high merits we have only lately awakened: his “Complaint of Rosamond” has a sustained dignity and pathos that deserve all Barnfield’s praise; the “Sonnets to Delia” are graceful and impressive in their purity; his “Civil Wars” may seem heavy, but the fault lies in ourselves, if unsteady readers, not the poet: thus we suspect, when we remember the true poetic fervour of his Pastoral,

_O happy Golden Age!_

and his Description of Beauty, from Marino.

Of “Heroick DRAYTON” we write more hereafter: He grows dearer to us with every year. His “Dowsabell” is on p. 73. Was his being coupled as a “Poet-Beadle,” in allusion to his numerous verse-epistles, showing an acquaintance with all the worthies of his day, even as his _Polyolbion_ gives a roll-call of the men, and a gazetteer of the England they made illustrious? For, as shown in the _Apophthegmmes of Erasmus_, 1564, Booke 2nd, (p. 296 of the Boston Reprint,) it is “the proper office and dutie of soche biddelles (who were called in latin _Nomenclators_) to have perfecte knowlege and remembrance of the names, of the surnames, and of the titles of dignitees of all persones, to the ende that thei maie helpe the remembraunce of their maisters in the same when neede is.” To our day the office of an Esquire Beddell is esteemed in Cambridge University. But, we imagine, George Wither is styled a “Poets Beadle” with a very different significance. It was the Bridewell-Beadles’ whip which he wielded vigorously, in flagellation of offenders, that may have earned him the title. See his “_Abuses Stript and Whipt_,” 1613, and turn to the rough wood-cut of cart’s-tail punishment shown in the frontispiece to _A Caueat or Warening for Common Cursetors, vulgarly called Vagabones_, set forth by Thomas Harman, Esquier for the utilitie and profit of his naturall country, &c., 1566, and later (Reprinted by E. E. Text Soc., and in _O. B. Coll. Misc._, i. No. 4, 1871).

GEORGE WITHER was his own worst foe, when he descended to satiric invective and pious verbiage. True poet was he; as his description of the Muse in her visit to him while imprisoned in the Marshalsea, with almost the whole of his “Shepherd’s Hunting” and “Mistress of Phil’arete,” prove incontestibly. He is to be loved and pitied: although perversely he will argue as a schismatick, always wrong-headed and in trouble, whichever party reigns. To him, in his sectarian zeal or sermonizing platitudes—all for our good, alas!—we can but answer with the melancholy Jacques: “I do not desire you to please me. I do desire you to _sing_!”

“Pan’s Pastoral _Brown_” is, of course, WM. BROWNE, author of “Britannia’s Pastorals.” Like JAMES SHIRLEY, last in the group of early Dramatists, his precocious genius is remembered in the text. Regretting that no painted or sculptured portrait of JOHN FORDE survives, we are thankful for this striking picture of him in his sombre meditation. We could part, willingly, with half of our dramatic possessions since the nineteenth century began, to recover one of the lost plays by Ford. No writer holds us more entirely captive to the tenderness of sorrow; no one’s hand more lightly, yet more powerfully, stirs the affections, while admitting the sadness, than he who gave us “The Broken Heart,” and “’Tis pity she’s a whore.”

Not unhappily chosen is the epithet “The Squibbing MIDDLETON,” for he almost always fails to impress us fully by his great powers. He warms not, he enlightens not, with steady glow, but gives us fireworks instead of stars or altar-burnings. We except from this rebuke his “Faire Quarrel,” 1622, which shows a much firmer grasp and purpose, fascinating us the while we read. Perhaps, with added knowledge of him will come higher esteem.

Of THOMAS HEYWOOD the portrait is complete, every word developing a feature: his fertility, his choice of subjects, and rubicund appearance.

Nor is the humourous sadness, of the figure shewn by the aged THOMAS CHURCHYARD, less touching because it is dashed in with burlesque. “Poverty and Poetry his Tomb doth enclose” (_Camden’s Remains_). His writings extend from the time of Edward VI. to early in the reign of James I. (he died in 1604); some of the poems in _Tottel’s Miscellany_, 1557, were claimed by him, but are not identified, and J. P. Collier thought him not unlikely to have partly edited the work, His “Tragedie of Shore’s Wife,” (best edit. 1698), in the _Mirror for Magistrates_, surpasses most of his other poems; yet are there biographical details in _Churchyard’s Chips_, 1575, that reward our perusal. Gascoigne and several other poets added _Tam Marti quàm Mercurio_ after their names; but Churchyard could boast thus with more truth as a Soldier. He says:—

_Full thirty yeers, both Court and Warres I tryed,_
_And still I sought acquaintaunce with the best,_
_And served the Staet, and did such hap abyed_
_As might befall, and Fortune sent the rest:_
_When drom did sound, a souldier was I prest,_
_To sea or lande, as Princes quarrell stoed,_
_And for the saem, full oft I lost my blood._

But, throughout, misfortune dogged him:—

_... To serve my torn [~i.e., turn~] in service of the Queen:_
_But God he knoes, my gayn was small, I ween,_
_For though I did my credit still encreace,_
_I got no welth, by warres, ne yet by peace._

(C.’s Chips: _A Tragicall Discourse of the
unhappy man’s Life_; verses 9, 26.)

Of THOMAS DEKKER, or Decker (about 1575-1638), “_A priest in Apollo’s Temple, many yeares_,” with his “Old Fortunatus,” both parts of his “Honest Whore,” his “Satiromastix,” and “Gull’s Hornbook,” &c.,—which take us back to all the mirth and squabbling of the day—we need add no word but praise. We believe that a valuable clue is afforded by the allusion in our text to the pamphlet “Dekker his Dreame,” 1620, (reprinted by J. O. Halliwell, 1860.) We may be certain that “The Time-Poets” was not written earlier than 1620, or any later than 1636 (or probably than 1632), and before Jonson’s death.

Page 7. “_Rounce, Robble, Hobble, he that writ so big._”

In this 50th line the word “high” is evidently redundant (probably an error in printer’s MS., not erased when the true word “big” was added): we retain it, of course, though in smaller type; as in similar cases of excess. But who was “_Rounce, Robble, Hobble_?” Most certainly it was no other than RICHARD STANYHURST (1547-1618), whose varied adventures, erudition, and eccentricities of verse combined to make him memorable. His Hexameter translation of the _Æneis_ Books i-iv, appeared in 1583; not followed by any more during the thirty-five years succeeding. Gabriel Harvey praised him, in his “_Foure Letters_,” &c., although Thomas Nashe, in 1592, declares that “Master Stanyhurst (though otherwise learned) trod a foule, lumbring, boystrous, wallowing measure in his translation of Virgil. He had never been praised by Gabriel [Harvey] for his labour, if therein he had not been so famously absurd.” (_Strange Newes._) This _Æneid_ had a limited reprint in 1839. Warton in _Hist. Eng. Poetry_ gives examples (misnaming him Robert) but Camden says “_Eruditissimus ille nobilis Richardus Stanihurstus_.” In his preface to Greene’s _Arcadia_, Nash quotes Stanyhurst’s description of a Tempest:—

_Then did he make heauens vault to rebound_
_With rounce robble bobble,_ [N.B.]
_Of ruffe raffe roaring,_
_With thicke thwacke thurly bouncing_:

and indicates his opinion of the poet, “as of some thrasonical huffe-snuffe,” indulging in “that quarrelling kind of verse.” One more specimen, to justify our text, regarding “he that writ so big:” in the address to the winds, _Æn._, Bk. i., Neptune thus rails:—

_Dare ye, lo, curst baretours, in this my Seignorie regal,_
_Too raise such racks iacks on seas and danger unorder’d?_

The recent death of Stanyhurst, 1618, strengthens our belief that _the Time-Poets_ was not later than 1620-32.

To WILLIAM BASSE we owe the beautiful epitaph on Shakespeare, printed in 1633, “_Renowned ~Spencer~, lye a thought more nigh To learned ~Chaucer~_,” _etc._, and at least two songs (beside “Great Brittaine’s Sunnes-set,” 1613), viz., the Hunter in his Career, beginning “Long ere the Morn,” and one of the best Tom o’ Bedlam’s; probably, “Forth from my sad and darksome cell.”

The name of JOHN SHANKE, here suggestively famous “for a jigg,” occurs in divers lists of players (see J. P. C.’s _Annals of the Stage_, _passim_), he having been one of Prince Henry’s Company in 1603. That he was also a singer, we have this verse in proof, written in the reign of James I. (_Bibliog. Acc._ i. 163):—

_That’s the fat foole of the ~Curtin~,_
_And the lean fool of the ~Bull~:_
_Since ~Shanke~ did leave to sing his rimes_
_He is counted but a gull._
_The Players on the ~Banckeside~,_
_The round ~Globe~ and the ~Swan~,_
_Will teach you idle tricks of love,_
_But the ~Bull~ will play the man._

(W. Turner’s _Common Cries of London Town_, 1662.)

“Broom” is RICHARD BROME (died 1652), whose racy comedies have been, like Dekker’s, lately reprinted. The insinuation that Ben Jonson had “sent him before to sweep the way,” alludes, no doubt, to the fact of Brome having earlier been Jonson’s servant, and learning from his personal discourse much of dramatic art. Neither was it meant nor accepted as an insult, when, (printed 1632,) Jonson wrote (“according to Ben’s own nature and custom, magisterial enough,” as their true friend Alexander Brome admits),

_I had you for a Servant once, ~Dick Brome~;_
_And you perform’d a Servant’s faithful parts:_
_Now, you are got into a nearer room_
_Of ~Fellowship~, professing my old Arts._
_And you do doe them well, with good applause,_
_Which you have justly gained from the Stage_, &c.

It is amusing to mark the survival of the old joke in our text, about sweeping (it came often enough, in _Figaro in London_, &c., at the time of the 1832 Reform Bill, as to Henry Brougham and Vaux); when we see it repeated, almost literally, in reference to Alexander Pope’s fellow-labourer on the Odyssey translation, the Rev. William Broome, of our St. John’s College, Cambridge:—

_~Pope~ came off clean with ~Homer~, but they say,_
_~Broome~ went before, and kindly swept the way._

Leaving a few words on the matchless BEN himself for the “Sessions of the Poets” Additional Note, we end this commentary on our book’s chief poem with a few more stanzas from the Beswick Manuscript, by George Daniel, (written in great part before, part after, 1647,) in honour of Ben Jonson, but preceded by others relating to Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Beaumont, and Donne:—

_I am not bound to honour antique names,_ [8th verse]
_Nor am I led by other men to chuse_
_Any thing worthy, which my judgment blames;_
_Heare better straines, though by a later Muse;_
_The sweet ~Arcadian~ singer first did raise_
_Our Language current, and deserv’d his Baies._

_That Lord of ~Penhurst~, ~Penhurst~ whose sad walls_
_Yet mourne their master, in the ~Belgicke~ fray_
_Untimely lost; to whose dear funeralls_
_The ~Medwaie~ doth its constant tribute paye;_
_But glorious ~Penhurst~, ~Medwaies~ waters once_
_With ~Mincius~ shall, and ~Mergeline~ advance;_

_The ~Shepherds Boy~; best knowen by that name_
_~Colin~: upon his homely Oaten Reed._
_With ~Roman Tityrus~ may share in ffame;_
_But when a higher path hee strains to tread,_
_This is my wonder: for who yet has seene_
_Soe cleare a Poeme as his ~Faierie Queene~?_

_The sweetest ~Swan of Avon~; to the faire_
_And cruel ~Delia~, passionatelie sings:_
_Other mens weaknesses and follies are_
_Honour and Wit in him; each Accent brings_
_A sprig to crowne him Poet; and contrive_
_A Monument, in his owne worke to live._

_~Draiton~ is sweet and smooth: though not exact,_
_Perhaps to stricter Eyes; yet he shall live_
_Beyond their Malice: to the Scene and Act,_
_Read Comicke ~Shakespeare~; or if you would give_
_Praise to a just Desert, crowning the Stage,_
_See ~Beaumont~, once the honour of his Age._

_The reverent ~Donne~; whose quill God purely fil’d,_
_Liveth to his Character: so though he claim’d_
_A greater glory, may not be exil’d_
_This Commonwealth_, &c.

_Here pause a little; for I would not cloy_ [verse 15]
_The curious Eare, with recitations;_
_And meerily looke at names; attend with joy,_
_Unto an ~English~ Quill, who rivall’d once_
_~Rome~, not to make her blush; and knowne of late_
_Unenvied (’cause unequall’d) Laureate._

_This, this was JONSON; who in his own name_
_Carries his praise; and may he shine alone;_
_I am not tyed to any generall ffame,_
_Nor fixed by the Approbation_
_Of great ones: But I speake without pretence_
_Hee was of ~English~ Dramatiskes, the Prince._

Page 10. _Come, my White-head, let our Muses._

This was written by SIR SIMEON STEWARD, or Stewart. The numbers 1 and 2 of our text are twice incorrect in original, viz. the 10th and 14th verses, each assigned to 1 (Red-head), whereas they certainly belong to 2 (White-head). From third verse the figure “1” has unfortunately dropt in printing. By aid of Addit. MS. No. 11, 811, p. 36, we are enabled to correct a few other errors, some being gross corruptions of sense; although, as a general rule, regarding poems that had appeared in print, the private MS. versions abound with blunders of the transcriber, additional to those of the original printer. It is, in the MS., entitled “A Dialogue between _Pyrrotrichus_ and _Leucothrix_,” the latter taking verses 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and the final verse, 14 (marked _Leuc_). His earliest verse reads, in the MS., “_And higher, Rufus_, who would pass; were _some_; 3rd. v. ’Tis _this_ that; 6th. The Roman _King who_; be _lopt_; Ruddy _pates_; 8th v. Red like _unto_; _colour_; 9th. _Nay_ if; doth _beare_ no; side _looks_ as fair; other _doth_ my; bear _my_ [?]; 10th. _Therefore_, methinks; Besides, _of_ all the; 12th. N.B.—Yet _what thy head must buy with_ yeares, Crosses; That _hath_ nature _giv’n_; 13th, be _two_ friendly peeres; let us _joyn_; make _one_ beauteous; 14th, [_Leucothrix_.] We _joyn’d_ our heads; beat them _to heart_ [i.e. to boot]; Was _just_ but; _of_ our head.” In the Reresby Memoirs, we believe, is mention of an ancestress, who, about 1619, married this (?) “Sir Simeon Steward.”

Page 15. _A Stranger coming to the town._

In Wm. Hickes his _Oxford Drollery_, 1671, in Part 3rd, (“Poems made at Oxford, long since”), p. 157, this Epigram appears, with variations. The second verse reads: _But being there a little while,_ || _He met with one so right_ || _That upon the ~French~ Disease_ || _It was his chance to light._ The final couplet is:—_The ~French-man’s~ Arms are the sign without,_ || _But the ~French-man’s~ harms are within._

Throughout the first half of the Seventeenth century the abundance of Epigrams produced is enormous; whole volumes of them, divided into Books, like J. Heywood’s, being issued by poets of whom nothing else is known, except the name, unless Anthony à Wood has fortunately preserved some record. These have not been systematically examined, as they deserve to be. Amid much rubbish good things lie hid. Perhaps the Editor may have more to say on them hereafter. Meanwhile, take this, by Robert Hayman, as alike a specimen and a summary:—

To the Reader:

Sermons and Epigrams have a like end,
To improve, to reprove, and to amend:
Some passe without this vse, ’cause they are witty;
And so doe many Sermons, more’s the pitty.

(_Quodlibets_, 1628, Book IV., p. 59.)

Page 20. _List, your Nobles, and attend._

This was (perhaps, by JOHN ELIOT,) certainly written in anticipatory celebration of the event described, the Reception of Queen Henrietta Maria by the citizens of London, 1625. The full title is this:—“The Author intending to write upon the Duke of _Buckingham_, when he went to fetch the Queen, prepared a new Ballad for the Fidlers, as might hold them to sing between _Dover_ and _Callice_.” It is thus the poem reappears, with some variations (beginning “_Now list, you Lordlings, and attend_, || _Unto a Ballad newly penned_,” &c.,) among the “_Choyce Poems, being Songs, Sonnets, Satyrs, and Elegies_. By the Wits of both Universities, London,” &c., 1661, p. 83. This was merely the earlier edition (of June, 1658), reissued with an irregular extra sheet at beginning. The original title-page (two issued in 1658) was “_Poems or Epigrams, Satyrs, Elegies, Songs and Sonnets, upon several persons and occasions_. By no body must know whom, to be had every body knows where, and for any body knows what. [MS. The Author John Eliot.] London, Printed for Henry Brome, at the _Gun_ in Ivie Lane, 1658.” It is mentioned that “These poems were given me neer sixteen years since [therefore about 1642] by a Friend of the Authors, with a desire they might be printed, but I conceived the Age then too squeemish to endure the freedom which the Author useth, and therefore I have hitherto smothered them, but being desirous they should not perish, and the world be deprived of so much clean Wit and Fancy, I have adventured to expose them to thy view; ... The Author writes not pedantically, but like a gentleman; and if thou art a gentleman of thy own making thou wilt not mislike it.”

Verse 9th. _Gondomar_ was the Spanish Ambassador at the Court of James I., to whom, with his “one word” of “Pyrates, Pyrates, Pyrates,” we in great part owe the slaughter of Raleigh. Of course, the date ’526, four lines lower, is a blunder. The rash visit to Madrid was in March, 1623.

Title, and verse 8th. A _Jack-a-Lent_ was a stuffed puppet, set up to be thrown at, during Lent. Perhaps it was a substitute for a live Cock; or else the Cock-throwing may have been a later “improvement:” See Hone’s _Every Day Book_, for an illustrated account, i. 249. Trace of the habit survives in our modern “Old Aunt Sally,” by which yokels lose money at Races (although Dorset Rectors try to abolish Country Fairs, while encouragement is given to gambling at Chapel Bazaars with raffles for pious purposes). In the _Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act iii. sc. 3, Mrs. Page says to the boy, “You little _Jack-a-Lent_, have you been true to us?” Quarles alludes to the practice:—

_How like a ~Jack-a-Lent~_
_He stands, for boys to spend their Shrove-tide throws,_
_Or like a puppet made to frighten crows._

(J. O. Halliwell’s _M. W. of W._, Tallis ed., p. 127.)

John Taylor (the Water-Poet) wrote a whim-wham entitled “_Jack a Lent: his Beginning and Entertainment_,” about 1619, printed 1630; as “of the Jack of Jacks, great Jack a Lent.” And Cleveland devoted thus a Cavalier’s worn suit: “Thou shalt make _Jack-a-Lents_ and Babies first.” (_Poems_, 1662, p. 56.)

Martin Llewellyn’s Song on Cock-throwing begins “Cock a doodle doe, ’tis the bravest game;” in his _Men-Miracles_, &c., 1646, p. 61.

Page 31. _A Story strange I will you tell._

As to the burden (since some folks are inquisitive about the etymology of Down derry down, or Ran-dan, &c.), we may note that in a queer book, _The Loves of Hero and Leander_, 1651, p. 3, is a six-line verse ending thus:

“_Oh, ~Hero~, ~Hero~, pitty me,_
_With a dildo, dildo, dildo dee._”

By which we may guess that the Rope-dancer’s Song, in our text, was probably written about, or even before, 1651. Some among us (the Editor for one) saw Madame Sacchi in 1855 mount the rope, although she was seventy years old, as nimbly as when the first Napoleon had been her chief spectator. During the Commonwealth, rope-dancing and tumbling were tolerated at the Red-Bull Theatre, while plays were prohibited. See (Note to p. 210) our Introduction to _Westminster Drollery_, pp. xv.-xx, and the Frontispiece reproduced from Kirkman’s “_Wits_,” 1673, representing sundry characters from different “Drolls,” grouped together, viz.: Falstaff and Dame Quickly, from “the Bouncing Knight;” the French Dancing-Master, from the Duke of Newcastle’s “Variety,” Clause, from Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Beggar’s Bush,” Tom Greene as Bubble the Clown uttering “Tu Quoque” from John Cooke’s “City Gallant” (peeping through the chief-entrance, reserved for dignitaries); also Simpleton the Smith, and the Changeling, from two of Robert Cox’s favourite Drolls. We add now, illustrative of practical suppression under the Commonwealth, a contemporary record:—

A SONG.

1.

_The fourteenth of ~September~_
_I very well remember,_
_When people had eaten and fed well,_
_Many men, they say,_
_Would needs go see a Play,_
_But they saw a great rout at the ~red Bull~._

2.

_The Soldiers they came,_
_(The blind and the lame)_
_To visit and undo the Players;_
_And women without Gowns,_
_They said they would have Crowns;_
_But they were no good Sooth-sayers._

3.

_Then ~Jo: Wright~ they met,_
_Yet nothing could get,_
_And ~Tom Jay~ i’ th’ same condition:_
_The fire men they_
_Would ha’ made ’em a prey,_
_But they scorn’d to make a petition._

4. [p. 89.]

_The Minstrills they_
_Had the hap that day,_
_(Well fare a very good token)_
_To keep (from the chase)_
_The fiddle and the case,_
_For the instruments scap’d unbroken._

5.

_The poor and the rich,_
_The wh... and the b...,_
_Were every one at a losse,_
_But the Players were all_
_Turn’d (as weakest) to the wall,_
_And ’tis thought had the greatest losse._ [? _cross._]

(_Wit’s Merriment, or Lusty Drollery_, 1656, p. 88.)

One such raid on the poor actors (and probably at this very theatre, the Red Bull, St. John’s Street, Clerkenwell) is recorded, as of 20th December, 1649:—“Some Stage-players in St. John’s-Street were apprehended by troopers, their clothes taken away, and themselves carried to prison” (Whitelocke’s _Memorials_, 435, edit. 1733, cited by J. P. C., _Annals_, ii. 118). It was a serious business, as we see from the Ordinance of 11 Feb., 1647-8; the demolishing of seats and boxes, the actors “to be apprehended and openly and publicly whipt in some market town ... to enter into recognizances with two sufficient sureties, never to act or play any Play or Interlude any more,” &c.

As for the Light-skirts, so elegantly referred to in the Song now reprinted (as far as we are aware, for the first time), they were certainly not actresses, but courtezans frequenting the place to ensnare visitors. Although English women did not _publicly_ perform until after the Restoration, except on one occasion (of course, at Court Masques and private mansions, the Queen herself and her ladies had impersonated characters), yet so early as 8th November, 1629, some French professional actresses vainly attempted to get a hearing at Blackfriars Theatre, and a fortnight later at the Red Bull itself, as three weeks afterwards at the Fortune. Evidently, they were unsuccessful throughout. We hear a good deal about the far-more objectionable “Ladies of Pleasure,” who beset all places of amusement. Thomas Cranley, addressing one such, in his _Amanda_, 1635, describes her several alluring disguises and habits:—

_The places thou dost usually frequent_
_Is to some playhouse in an afternoon,_
_And for no other meaning and intent_
_But to get company to sup with soon;_
_More changeable and wavering than the moon._
_And with thy wanton looks attracting to thee_
_The amorous spectators for to woo thee._

_Thither thou com’st in several forms and shapes_
_To make thee still a stranger to the place,_
_And train new lovers, like young birds, to scrapes,_
_And by thy habit so to change thy face;_
_At this time plain, to-morrow all in lace:_
_Now in the richest colours to be had;_
_The next day all in mourning, black and sad._ &c.

Page 33. _Oh fire, fire, fire, where?_