THOMAS HEYWOOD

LONDON:
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.

Thomas Heywood

The Red Bull Theatre

A Woman Killed with Kindness

The Fair Maid of the West

The English Traveller

The Wise Woman of Hogsdon

The Rape of Lucrece

Footnotes

Introduction

A Woman Killed with Kindness

The Fair Maid of the West

The English Traveller

The Wise Woman of Hogsdon

The Rape of Lucrece

“If I were to be consulted as to a reprint of our old English dramatists,” says Charles Lamb, “I should advise to begin with the collected plays of Heywood. He was a fellow actor and fellow dramatist with Shakespeare. He possessed not the imagination of the latter, but in all those qualities which gained for Shakespeare the attribute of gentle, he was not inferior to him—generosity, courtesy, temperance in the depths of passion; sweetness, in a word, and gentleness; Christianism, and true hearty Anglicism of feelings, shaping that Christianism, shine throughout his beautiful writings in a manner more conspicuous than in those of Shakespeare; but only more conspicuous, inasmuch as in Heywood these qualities are primary, in the other subordinate to poetry.” In another note Lamb calls Heywood a “prose Shakespeare.” Allowing for the exaggeration with which an enthusiastic love for our then neglected minor dramatists charged the criticism of Charles Lamb, this verdict is in many points a just one. Heywood, while he lacks the poetry, philosophy, deep insight into nature, and consummate art of Shakespeare—those qualities, in a word, which render Shakespeare supreme among dramatic poets—has a sincerity, a tenderness of pathos, and an instinctive perception of nobility, that distinguish him among the playwrights of the seventeenth century. Like Dekker, he wins our confidence and love. We keep a place in our affection for his favourite characters; they speak to us across two centuries with the voices of friends; while the far more brilliant masterpieces of many contemporary dramatists stir only our aesthetic admiration.[3]

Heywood, unlike many of his contemporaries, and in this respect notably unlike Dekker, seems to have kept tolerably free from joint composition. Of twenty-four plays, only two, The Late Lancashire Witches and Fortune by Land and Sea, were produced by him in collaboration, the former with Brome, and the latter with W. Rowley. Of all the playwrights of that period he was the most prolific. In 1633 he owned to having “had either an entire hand or at least a main finger” in two hundred and twenty dramas; and after that date others were printed, which may perhaps be reckoned in augmentation of this number. His literary fertility is proved by his Nine Books of Various History concerning Women, a folio of 466 pages, which appeared in 1624 with this memorandum: “Opus excogitatum inchoatum, explicitum, et typographo excusum inter septemdecem septimanas.” Kirkman, the book-seller, in his advertisement to the reader at the end of the second edition of his catalogue of plays, observes of Heywood that “he was very laborious; for he not only acted almost every day, but also obliged himself to write a sheet every day for several years together.” Besides composing dramas, he delighted in the labour of compilation, and had for some time on hand a Biographical Dictionary of all the poets, from the most remote period of the world’s history down to his own time. The loss of his MS. collections for this book is greatly to be regretted, since there was no man of that century better qualified by geniality and honesty of purpose for the task than the old playwright, who put into the lips of Apuleius:—

Even as it is, the few lines in Heywood’s Hierarchy of Angels on the nicknames of the poets of his day are among the raciest scraps of information which we possess about those dramatists. The miscellaneous nature of Heywood’s literary labours justifies us in classing him, together with Robert Greene, among the earliest professional littérateurs of our language. His criticism is often quite as valuable as his dramatic poetry. The whole of the running dialogue between Apuleius and Midas in Love’s Mistress, for example, contains a theory of the relation of poets to the public, while the prologues to A Challenge for Beauty and The Royal King and Loyal Subject are interesting as showing to what extent the dramatists of the Elizabethan age pursued their art with conscious purpose and comparison.

We may notice how careless, in common with many of his contemporaries, Heywood was concerning the fate of his dramatic writings. Plays, and comedies in particular, were written, not to be read and studied, but to be acted. This we should never forget while passing judgment upon the unequal work of the Elizabethan playwrights. In the Address to the Reader, prefixed to the English Traveller, Heywood complains that this tragi-comedy had been published without his consent, and apologises for coming forward to father it before the world, adding, not without a sly poke at Jonson and his school:—

In the preface to the Rape of Lucrece he repeats his complaints against the clandestine and unauthorised publication of his plays, with this declaration of his own habit of dealing with them:—

He then proceeds to show that the pirated editions of his plays in mangled copies have forced him to right himself before the public by superintending the issue of a certain number of his works. In the prologue to If you Know not Me, you Know Nobody, the same apology is reiterated in terms which throw a curious light upon the short-hand reporters of plays for the press, employed by piratical booksellers to the prejudice of authors and theatre managers:—

Of the twenty-three plays in Mr. Pearson’s collection, four—namely, the two parts of Edward IV. and the two parts of If you Know not Me, you Know Nobody—are histories of the old-fashioned sort, rudely dramatised from English chronicles, and seasoned with comic and pathetic episodes. Of the two series, Edward IV. has in it more of Heywood’s special quality; the interlude of the Tanner of Tamworth and the romance of Mistress Shore displaying his double power of dealing with drollery and passion in the simplest and most natural style. In truth, the second part of Edward IV., which begins with a dull, confused account of that king’s wars in France, becomes a romantic drama on the legend of Jane Shore. This is chiefly remarkable for the way in which Heywood sustains the character of Master Shore, who is the very mirror of sound English middle-class Christianity. The erring wife’s portrait is touched with striking, if somewhat sentimental, appeals to natural sympathy. Both are excellent examples of the dramatist’s homely art and honest humanity, though nothing can be balder and more artless than the manner of their death together on the stage. If you Know not Me, you Know Nobody is a chronicle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, including her early dangers and the late glories of the defeat of the Armada. The whole series of scenes breathes the strongest English patriotism and the most enthusiastic Protestant feeling. It is a pity that, hastily and clumsily pieced together, a drama so interesting in its matter should almost be valueless as a work of art. It was published as a companion to S. Rowley’s When you See Me, you Know Me, which has been reprinted by Dr. Karl Elze.

The Late Lancashire Witches and the Wise Woman of Hogsdon are comedies of English life, without that element of romantic interest which Heywood usually added to the domestic drama. The plot of the latter play turns upon the quackeries and impostures of a professed fortune-teller; but to mention it in the same breath with Jonson’s Alchemist would be ridiculous. The Lancashire Witches, though it attempts, in one scene at least, to touch the deeper interest of witchcraft, deals for the most part only with the vulgar and farcical aspects of the subject. It has nothing in common with The Witch of Edmonton or Middleton’s Witch. A household turned topsy-turvy, a coursing-match spoiled, a farm-servant changed into a gelding, and a bridegroom bewitched with a charmed codpiece-point upon his wedding night, are among its insipid drolleries. In Fortune by Land and Sea, The English Traveller, The Fair Maid of the Exchange, and both parts of The Fair Maid of the West, Heywood displays to better advantage his predilection for homespun stories, dealing chiefly with the incidents of country life and the adventures of English captains on the high seas. Pure comedy and pure tragedy were neither of them suited to his genius. He required a subject in which the familiar events of English domestic life might be contrasted with the romantic episodes of sea-roving and of foreign travel. To interweave these motives with the addition of pathos and sentiment, was just what he could do successfully. No dramatist has painted more faithful home pictures. None have thrown more natural light upon the pursuits of English gentlemen in the first half of the seventeenth century. The merit of all these five plays is considerable. It would have been impossible even for Fletcher to realise a difficult scene with greater ease and delicacy than are displayed in the interview between young Geraldine and Wincott’s wife in The English Traveller. A pair of lovers, who have been parted, meet again and renew their old vows in the bedroom of the girl just made a wife. The calm strength and honourable feeling displayed by this Paolo and his Francesca in their perilous interview are the result of unsuspecting innocence and sweetness. If the situation is almost unnatural and disagreeable, the poet has contrived to invest it with the air of purity, reality, sincerity, and health. Fortune by Land and Sea is richer in scenes which reveal Heywood at his best. The opening of this play is one of his most vigorous transcripts from contemporary English country life. Frank Forrest, a daring and high-blooded youngster, evades his careful father, and flies off to a neighbouring tavern, less for the sake of drinking than in order to meet spirited companions. One of them picks a quarrel with him about his respect for his old father, and the boy is killed. The grief of old Forrest, the challenge given by the brother to Frank’s murderer, the duel that ensues, and young Forrest’s escape, are all set forth with photographic reality and force. Event huddles upon event, and the whole proceeds with the simplicity of truth. These scenes only form a prelude to the play, which, like most of Heywood’s, contains a double plot; but at the same time they are its salt. The Fair Maid of the West, a romantic drama in two parts, sets forth the adventures of the Devonshire Captain Spencer and his love Bess Bridges, who is introduced to us as the mistress of a Plymouth inn. It may be said in passing, that few tavern-scenes in our Elizabethan drama, not even those of Dekker, are better painted than those which form the introduction to Act I. Battles with pirates, slavery in Fez, and adventures in Florence form the staple of the drama, which must have presented many attractions to an English audience of the age of Stukeley, Sherley, and Drake. The Fair Maid of the Exchange is another play belonging to what the Germans style das bürgerliche Drama. To my mind its sentiment is sickly, and its story, in spite of many beautiful passages, disagreeable. Phillis is the Fair Maid; and the real hero of the piece is a cripple, who saves her from a ruffianly assault, and who falls in love with her. She returns his love; but Heywood had not the courage to develop this situation. Therefore he makes the cripple plead the cause of another suitor to the Fair Maid, who at the end of the play transfers her affections with a levity and a complacency that would be offensive in real life. The charm of this comedy consists in a certain air of April-morning freshness; it has, moreover, one of Heywood’s most exquisite songs, a lyric that deserves to rank with Dekker’s, and which is made for music: “Ye little birds that sit and sing.”

The seven plays on English domestic subjects which I have now enumerated, are all of them eclipsed in their own kind by Heywood’s masterpiece, A Woman Killed with Kindness. Leaving that, the finest bourgeois tragedy of our Elizabethan literature, for future comment, we come to another group of Heywood’s plays, which may perhaps be best described as romances. Of these, The Four Prentices of London, a juvenile performance of the poet, is both the least interesting, and by far the most extravagant. Guy, Eustace, Tancred, and Godfrey, the four sons of the Duke of Boulogne, and at the same time ’prentices in London shops, start off like Paladins, and win their laurels in the first Crusade. Whether this absurd play was intended, like Fletcher’s Knight of the Burning Pestle, for a parody of chivalrous romances, or whether, as its dedication to “the Honest and High-spirited ’Prentices, the Readers” seems to imply, it was meant for a hyperbolical compliment to the courage of London counter-jumpers, is not a very important matter. The latter is the more probable supposition. The plot is a tissue of sanguinary and sentimental adventures, with a certain admixture of good-humoured sarcasm on the London cits, that may have gratified their ’prentice-lads. The old quarto has for frontispiece a curious woodcut of the four knightly shop-boys. The Royal King and Loyal Subject is a drama with an ideal intention. Pretending to be founded upon English history, it really sets forth the contest of generosity between a monarch and one of his great nobles. In the course of this play Heywood has used some of the motives that add pathos to Patient Grissil; the King of England exposes the Lord Marshal to a series of humiliations and studied insults before, as a climax to the favour he intends to heap upon him, he unites his own family and that of his subject by a triple bond of marriage. The whole situation is better in conception than in execution. I take it to be one of Heywood’s earlier dramatic essays. A Challenge for Beauty tells the tale of a proud Portuguese Queen, who thinks herself the fairest woman of the world, but who is brought at the end of the play to admit that she is vanquished as much in beauty by an English lady as her husband’s captains are surpassed in courage and courtesy by English gentlemen. The most interesting portion of the drama is subordinate to the subject which supplies the title. The contest of generosity between a noble Spaniard, Valladaura, and an English captain, Montferrers, who has been sold into slavery together with a friend that he dearly loved, displays all that innate gentleness and chivalry which Lamb recognized as the fairest of Heywood’s characteristics. Valladaura finds his old enemy Montferrers in the slave-market, pays down his price, and sets him free. Montferrers cannot accept freedom while his friend remains a slave. Valladaura buys them both, taking Montferrers with him to remain, an honoured guest, in his own house. Now begins the duel of courtesy between the two men. Valladaura loves a lady, Petrocella, and beseeches the Englishman to plead his suit with her. Montferrers executes the task, though he also loves Petrocella, and discovers in the course of his wooing that she returns his passion. The use he makes of her avowal is to bind her over to accept the Spaniard’s suit. But Valladaura is no whit less chivalrous. He resigns the lady to the man who has deserved her best. Those who have not studied the working out of such strained situations in the Lustspiele of Heywood or of Fletcher, can hardly imagine what flesh and blood reality these poets gave to almost inconceivable improbabilities. The vigorous and natural play of passions under strange disguises and painful conditions—the hesitations of divided allegiance—confusions of sex—contradictory emotions, pleased our play-going ancestors; and the dramatists had the skill to display the truth of human nature beneath the mask and garb of romantic fantasies. Under other hands, or in an age of less directness, such motives would have been ridiculous or offensive. A Maidenhead well Lost, is a romance of this type with Italian characters. While challenging comparison with similar comedies by Fletcher, Ford, Massinger, and others, it is but a tasteless and feeble production. Heywood was so thorough an Englishman that, for the full exercise of his poetic faculty, he needed a subject smacking of his native soil.

Having now described Heywood’s Histories, Domestic Dramas, and Romances, it remains for me to speak of the fourth group into which his plays may be divided. At the same time, I should observe that these divisions are, after all, but incomplete and artificial. Many of those which I have classified as Domestic Dramas, for example, borrow largely from the element of romance, while two of them are virtually comedies of farcical intrigue. The Golden, Silver, Brazen, and Iron Ages form a series of four plays, in which Heywood has dramatised antique legends, following principally Homer and Ovid in the selection of his material. Though there are many passages of graceful poetry and of humorous burlesque in these long-winded mythologies, they cannot be said to have much value either as dramas or as descriptive poems. That Heywood felt a natural predilection for this kind of composition may be seen in the rhyming versions he has made of Lucian’s Dialogues. Some of these, especially the conversations of Jupiter with Ganymede, and of Juno with Jupiter, deserve attention for their plain, straightforward rendering into racy English of the witty Greek. Love’s Mistress, which is a dramatic translation of Apuleius’s tale of Cupid and Psyche, is written in the same mood. It takes the form of a long allegorical masque; and here the poetry is sustained throughout at a higher level. Last of all these classic dramas in my list comes the Rape of Lucrece. Here Heywood quits the epical or allegorical treatment of classical subject-matter for the domain of tragedy. Yet he has given to this episode of ancient Roman history more the form of a chronicle-play than of the legitimate drama.

It cannot be denied that the effects of negligence in composition and over-strained fertility are traceable in all that Heywood wrote. He has produced no masterpiece, no thoroughly sustained flight of fancy, no play perfect in form, and very few absolutely self-consistent characters. His finest passages seem to flow from him by accident, as the result of a temporary exaltation of his talent, rather than of settled purpose. His best scenes are improvised. Nor is it possible to evade the conclusion, quaintly phrased by Kirkman, that “many of his plays being composed loosely in taverns, occasions them to be so mean.” These defects, indeed, Heywood shared in common with his contemporaries. Not many dramatic compositions of the seventeenth century can boast of classical finish or of artistic unity. Yet there is in the best works of such men as Marlowe, Webster, Ford, and Fletcher, a natural completeness, an unstudied singleness of effect, which Heywood almost invariably misses. With all our affection for him, we are forced to admire his poetry in fragments and with reservations. Perhaps he shows to best advantage in the extracts made by Lamb.

No dramatist ever used less artifice. The subjects which he chose are either taken straight from real life, or else adopted crudely from the legends of ancient Greece and Rome. In each case Heywood’s manner and method are the same. He uses simple, easy English, and sets forth unaffected feeling. The scenes have no elaborate connexion. They cohere by juxtaposition. The language is never high-flown or bombastic; rarely rising to the height of poetical diction, and attaining to intensity only when the passion of the moment is overwhelming, it owes its occasional force to its sincerity.

His means of reaching the heart are of the simplest; yet they are often deep and effectual. He depends for his tragic effects upon no Até, no midnight horrors, no sarcastic knave. Yet his use of some mere name—Nan, Nan!—and his allusions to Christ and our religion, go straight to the very soul. His men are all gentlemen; and it may be said in passing that he had more understanding of men, especially high-spirited young men, than of women. Nothing could be finer than the bearing, for example, of young Forrest when he challenges Rainsford, or of Valladaura and Montferrers, or again of Frankford and Sir Charles Mountford in A Woman Killed with Kindness. Now and then he touches the spring of true poetic language, as in these phrases:—

Or again:—

Or yet again:—

The last line of this quotation is a splendid instance of the way in which the old dramatists heightened horror by connecting one terrific image with another of a different sort, yet no less terrible. The fury of a lunatic hideously rattling his drum with fantastic gestures rushes across our mind without distracting our attention from the anguish of the man who speaks the words. The simile does but add force to his bewilderment.

Though not a lyrist in any high sense of the word, Heywood at times produced songs remarkable for purity and freshness. To one of these in the Fair Maid of the Exchange I have already called attention. Not less beautiful is a morning ditty, which begins “Pack, clouds away,” in the Rape of Lucrece. The patriotic war-song in the First Part of King Edward IV., “Agincourt, Agincourt, know ye not Agincourt?” is full of fire; while a humorous catch, “The Spaniard loves his ancient slop,” must have been a favourite with the groundlings, since it occurs in both The Rape of Lucrece and A Challenge for Beauty. There is plenty of proof that Heywood could write good words for street melodies. That his English style is generally free, flowing, and vernacular admits of no question; yet such were the contradictions of the age in which he lived, that he must needs at intervals display his erudition by the pedantic coinage of new phrases. Such words as “trifurk,” to “diapason,” “sonance,” “cathedral state,” “tenebrous,” “mœchal,” “monomachy,” “obdure” for “obdurate,” all of which occur in The Rape of Lucrece, demand for their inventor the emetic which Jonson in The Poetaster administered to Marston, and prove conspicuously how a little learning on the lips of an honest playwright is a dangerous thing.

The Rape of Lucrece, as I have before hinted, is nothing but the narrative of Livy divided into tableaux with no artistic consistency. It contains the whole story of Tullia’s ambition and the death of Servius, the journey of Brutus to Delphi, the fulfilment of the oracle, the betrayal of Gabii, the camp at Ardea, the crime of Tarquin, the rising of the Roman nobles, the war with Porsena, and the stories of Horatius and Scevola. The characters are devoid of personal reality. Lucrece herself is more a type of innocence than a true woman. Of the minor characters which fill out the play, by far the most original is Valerius. His part must have been a favourite with the London audience, for on the title-page we read: “with the several songs in their apt places by Valerius, the merry lord among the Roman peers.” Instead of fooling, sulking, or gaming, as the other nobles do beneath the Tarquin tyranny, he does nothing but sing. It is impossible to extract from him a word of sense in sober prose. But love songs, loose songs, drinking songs, dirges, street cries, a Scotch song, a Dutch song, and pastoral ditties, with rhymes on the names of public houses, public women, ale, wine, and so forth, flow from him in and out of season. He is the most striking instance of the licence with which the poets of the time were forced to treat their subjects for the sake of the gallery. Some of his verses are full of exquisite feeling; others are grossly coarse; some are comical, and others melancholy; but all are English. When Valerius first hears of the outrage offered to Lucrece, he breaks out into a catch of the most questionable kind, together with Horatius Cocles and a Clown. The whole matter is turned to ridicule, and it is difficult after this musical breakdown to read the tragedy except as a burlesque.

Love’s Mistress is a Masque in five acts rather than a play proper. In its day it enjoyed great popularity, for it was represented before James I. and his queen three times within the space of eight days. Its three prologues and one epilogue are remarkable even among the productions of that age for their fulsome flattery. The story of Cupid and Psyche, on which the Masque is founded, could not have failed to yield some beauties even to a far inferior craftsman than Heywood; and there are many passages of delicate and tender poetry scattered up and down the piece. Indeed, the whole is treated with an airy grace that has peculiar charm, while its abrupt contrasts and frequent changes must have made it a rare spectacle under the wise conduct of

Still, even in Love’s Mistress, Heywood betrays that lack of the highest artistic instinct, which we discover in almost all his work. He cannot manage the Court pageant with that exquisite tact which distinguishes the Endimion and the Sapho of Lyly. The whole play has a running commentary of criticism and exposition, conveyed in a dialogue between Apuleius, the author of the legend, and Midas, who personates stupidity. Apuleius explains the allegory as the action proceeds; Midas remains to the end the dull unappreciative boor, who “stands for ignorance,” and only cares for dancing clowns, or the coarse jests of buffoons. Apuleius is the type of the enthusiastic poet, whose wit is “aimed at inscrutable things beyond the moon.” Midas is the gross conceited groundling, who, turning everything he touches to dross, prefers Pan’s fool to Apollo’s chorus, and drives the god of light indignantly away. Both of them wear asses’ heads: Midas, because he grovels on the earth; Apuleius, because all human intellect proves foolish if it flies too far. There is much good-humoured irony in this putting of donkey’s ears on the poet’s head. This contrast between art and ignorance is paralleled by a series of subtle antitheses that pervade the play. Immortal Erôs finds a balance in the stupid clown, who boasts that Apollo has given him music, Cupid love, and Psyche beauty; but who remains untunable, unlovable, and hideous to the end. The juxtaposition of heaven and hell within our souls, the aspirations and the downfalls of our spirit, the nobility and the vileness of men around us, the perpetual contradiction between the region toward which we soar in our best moments, and the dull ground over which we have to plod in daily life: such are the metaphysical conceptions which underlie the shifting scenes and many-twinkling action of the masque. It would be unfair to institute any comparison between Love’s Mistress considered as a poem, and the delicate version of the legend in the Earthly Paradise. Yet there are touches of true poetry here and there throughout the play. The haunted house of Love which receives Psyche and where Echo and Zephyrus are her attendants, the visit of her three sisters, and the midnight awaking of wrathful Cupid, are all conceived with light and airy fancy. Cupid in his anger utters this curse on women:—

There is another aspect under which Love’s Mistress may be viewed—as a very early attempt at classical burlesque. Cupid, for example, is the naughty boy of Olympus. He describes Juno’s anger against Ganymede:—

Vulcan appears at his forge with more orders than he knows how to deal with:—

He thinks of making Venus “turn she-smith,” but

This is, of course, very simple fooling. Yet it contains the germ of those more thorough-going parodies in which the present age delights.

The play in which Heywood showed for once that he was not unable to produce a masterpiece is A Woman Killed with Kindness. All his powers of direct painting from the English life he knew so well, his faculty for lifting prose to the border-ground of poetry by the intensity of the emotion which he communicates, his simple art of laying bare the very nerves of passion, are here exhibited in perfection. This domestic tragedy touches one like truth. Its scenes are of everyday life. Common talk is used, and the pathos is homely; not like Webster’s, brought from far. Tastes may differ as to the morality or the wholesomeness of the sentiment evolved in the last act. None, however, can resist its artless claim upon our sympathies. The story may be briefly told. Mr. Frankford, a country gentleman of good fortune, marries the sister of Sir Francis Acton, and receives into his house an agreeable gentleman of broken means called Wendoll. They live together happily till Wendoll, trusted to the full by Frankford, takes advantage of his absence to seduce his wife. Nicholas, a servant, who, with the instinct of a faithful dog, has always suspected the stranger, discovers and informs Frankford of his dishonour. Frankford obtains ocular proof of his wife’s guilt, and punishes her by sending her to live alone, but at ease, in a manor that belongs to him. There she pines away and dies at last, after a reconciliation with her injured husband.[4]

In the genre Heywood had predecessors, but none of his rivals surpassed him. The chief interest of the play centres in the pure, confiding, tender-hearted character of Frankford. His blithe contentment during the first months of marriage, and the generosity with which he opens his doors to Wendoll, form a touching prelude to the suspicions, indignantly repelled at first, which grow upon him after he has weighed the tale of his wife’s infidelity related by Nicholas. He resolves to learn the truth, if possible, by actual experience. Here is interposed an admirable scene, in which Frankford and his wife, with Wendoll and another gentleman, play cards. The dialogue is a long double entendre, skilfully revealing the tortures of a jealous husband’s mind and his suspicious misinterpretation of each casual word. When they rise from the card-table, Frankford instructs Nicholas to get him duplicate keys for all his rooms. Then he causes a message to be delivered to him on a dark and stormy evening, and sets off with his servant, intending to return at midnight unnoticed and unexpected. His hesitation on the threshold of his wife’s chamber is one of the finest turning-points of the dramatic action. At last he summons courage to enter, but returns immediately:—

Then, with a passionate stretching forth of his desire toward the impossible, which reveals the whole depth of his tenderness, he cries:—

The following scene, in which Frankford pleads with his guilty and conscience-stricken wife, is full of pathos. Its passion is simple and homefelt. Each question asked by Frankford is such as a wronged husband has the right to ask. Each answer given by the wife is broken in mere monosyllables more eloquent than protestation. We feel the whole, because not a word is strained or far-fetched, because the tenderness of Frankford is not merely sentimental, because he does not rave or tear his passion to tatters; finally, because in the profundity of his grief he still can call his wife by her pet name.

Mrs. Frankford is no Guinevere, nor, again, like Alice in Arden of Feversham, is she steeled and blinded by an overwhelming passion. Heywood fails to realise her character completely, producing, as elsewhere in his portraits of women, a weak and vacillating picture. She changes quite suddenly from love for her newly-wedded lord to light longing for Wendoll, and then back again to the remorse which eats her life away. Wendoll is drawn more powerfully. We see the combat in his soul between the sense of duty to his benefactor and the love which invades him like an ocean, drowning all the landmarks he had raised to warn him from the perilous ground. Adultery has been three times treated by Heywood. In The English Traveller Mrs. Wincott sins with the same limp and unexplained facility as Mrs. Frankford. In Edward IV. Jane Shore is meant to raise the same sentimental pity as Mrs. Frankford on her death-bed.

Thomas Heywood was a Lincolnshire man, presumably of good family, though I cannot find that the Visitations of that county record any pedigree of his name. No poet of his age showed a more intimate acquaintance with the habits of country gentlemen, and none was more imbued with the spirit of true gentleness. He was a Fellow of Peter House, Cambridge, where he probably acquired that learning which sat upon him so lightly. He began to write for the stage as early as 1596, and in 1598 we find him engaged as an actor and a sharer in Henslowe’s company. Little else is known about his life, and, though it is certain that he lived to a ripe age, we are ignorant of the date of his death. Like many authors of his period, he adopted a motto for his works, to which he adhered, placing on his title-pages, Aut prodesse solent aut delectare. We may still say, with truth, that what he has written almost invariably succeeds in both these aims. His plays are defiled with very few unpardonably coarse scenes, those to be found in A Royal King and Loyal Subject being an exception to prove the rule. While concluding these introductory remarks, I can only express my regret that the editor has not been able to include more pieces of Heywood in the Mermaid Series; for Heywood is essentially an author whom we love the better the more we read of him. It is impossible to rise from the perusal of his plays without being refreshed and invigorated. May the five here presented, out of the twenty-four which bear his name, induce students to carry their researches further. They will, I feel confident, discover that three other sets of five plays are no less worthy of perusal than the five here chosen for their recreation.

John Addington Symonds.

∵ The text of four of the plays contained in this volume is substantially that of Pearson’s reprint (1874); the exception is The Fair Maid of the West, reprinted from the edition by Collier, though I have felt it necessary to dissent from Collier’s readings in several places. For the convenience of the reader I have attempted to indicate the changes of scene in the whole of the plays, marking also the probable locality of each scene, and altering the rather vague and unsatisfactory stage directions of the old copies. My thanks are due to Mr. S. W. Orson for many valuable suggestions.

A. W. V.

Heywood’s Plays were frequently acted on the stage of the Red Bull Theatre, of which Kirkman supplied an illustration in his collection of Drolls and Farces. This illustration has been reproduced as a frontispiece to the present volume. The theatre was one of the oldest in London; originally it was, as the name indicates, an inn yard, converted into a regular theatre during Elizabeth’s reign, and, like several contemporary playhouses, often used for other amusements; it was never considered a high-class theatre, but it was very popular. Its site was on a plot of ground, between the upper end of St. John Street and Clerkenwell Green, during the eighteenth century still called Red Bull Yard, and named Woodbridge Street at the beginning of the present century. In 1819 a writer who carefully investigated the matter could find no trace of the theatre; though he indicated a field of search by suggesting that its exact position might perhaps be set forth in existing leases.

Various companies played at the Red Bull at different times. In 1623 the Queen’s company (under the jurisdiction of the “now Earl of Leicester, then Lord Chamberlain of the Household of the said late Queen Anne of Denmark”) gave place to the Prince’s, so called after Prince Charles. In 1629, women actors (who also appeared at other theatres) played at the Red Bull. In 1639 the Red Bull Company got into trouble. A complaint was made to the king “that the stage-players of the Red Bull have lately, for many days together, acted a scandalous and libellous play, wherein they have audaciously reproached, and in a libellous manner traduced and personated, not only some of the Aldermen of the City of London and other persons of quality, but also scandalised and defamed the whole profession of Proctors belonging to the Court of Civil Law, and reflected upon the Government.” For this they received “exemplary punishment.” In the following year the company which had been playing at the Fortune Theatre changed to the Red Bull.

This was the only theatre that lived on until Restoration times, though not without many difficulties. Such items of information as the following (1655) are not uncommon:—“At the playhouse this week many were put to the rout by the soldiers.” “The actors, too,” Kirkman writes, “were commonly not only stripped, but many times imprisoned, till they paid such ransom as the soldiers should impose upon them.” Although the Red Bull survived the Commonwealth it succumbed soon after the Restoration. In 1660 Charles II. issued an order (not very rigorously carried out) for their suppression, as a concession to civic authorities. In 1661 Pepys wrote that “the clothes are very poor, and the actors but common fellows.” Better and more modern theatres arose, and in 1663 Davenant declared that “the Red Bull stands empty for fencers: there are no tenants in it but spiders.”

From two entries in Henslowe’s Diary the date when A Woman Killed with Kindness was written can be fixed with remarkable certainty. One entry runs:—“Paid, at the appointment of the Company, the 6th of March, 1603, unto Thomas Heywood, in full payment for his play, called A Woman Killed with Kindness, the sum of ... £3;” and the other—“Paid, at the appointment of Thomas Blackwood, the 7th of March, 1603, unto the tailor which made the black satin suit for the Woman Killed with Kindness the sum of ... 10s.” The earliest printed notice of the piece occurs in Middleton’s The Blacke Booke, 1604, where it is coupled with the Merry Devil of Edmonton:—“And being set out of the shop, ... she, by thy instructions, shall turn the honest simple fellow off at the next turning, and give him leave to see the Merry Devil of Edmonton, or A Woman Killed with Kindness, when his mistress is going herself to the same murder.” In 1607 the play was published, and a third edition appeared in 1617. It may be worth while to note that the title of the piece was a proverbial expression: compare, for instance, The Taming of the Shrew (to which Professor Dowden assigns the date 1597), iv. 1. 221:—

Professor Ward (English Dramatic Literature, ii. 114) refers also to Fletcher’s The Woman’s Prize, iii. 4:—

An interesting point in the history of this drama is the fact that it was quite recently revived by the Society of Dramatic Students, and revived, I believe, with signal success. Perhaps the only weak element in the five acts is the readiness with which the wife falls. I may add that the division of the play into acts and scenes is here attempted for the first time, at least in any edition of the piece.

I come but like a harbinger, being sent

To tell you what these preparations mean:

Look for no glorious state; our Muse is bent

Upon a barren subject, a bare scene.

We could afford this twig a timber tree,

Whose strength might boldly on your favours build;

Our russet, tissue; drone, a honey-bee;

Our barren plot, a large and spacious field;

Our coarse fare, banquets; our thin water, wine;

Our brook, a sea; our bat’s eyes, eagle’s sight;

Our poet’s dull and earthy Muse, divine;

Our ravens, doves; our crow’s black feathers, white:

But gentle thoughts, when they may give the foil,

Save them that yield, and spare where they may spoil.

Sir Francis Acton, Brother of Mistress Frankford.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Master Frankford.

Master Wendoll, Friend to Frankford.

Master Malby, Friend to Sir Francis.

Master Cranwell.

Shafton, a False Friend to Sir Charles.

Old Mountford, Uncle to Sir Charles.

Tidy, Cousin to Sir Charles.

Sandy.

Roder.

Servants to Frankford:

Nicholas,

Jenkin,

Roger Brickbat,

Jack Slime,

Spigot, a Butler,

Sheriff.

A Serjeant, a Keeper, Officers, Falconers, Huntsmen, a Coachman, Carters, Servants, Musicians.

Mistress Frankford.

Susan, Sister of Sir Charles.

Cicely, Maid to Mistress Frankford.

Women Servants.

SCENE—The North of England.

Enter Master Frankford, Mistress Frankford, Sir Francis Acton, Sir Charles Mountford, Master Malby, Master Wendoll, and Master Cranwell.

Sir Francis Acton.

Some music there: none lead the bride a dance?

Sir Charles Mountford.

Yes, would she dance “The Shaking of the Sheets;”[1]

But that’s the dance her husband means to lead her.

Wendoll.

That’s not the dance that every man must dance,

According to the ballad.

Sir Francis Acton.

Music, ho!

By your leave, sister;—by your husband’s leave,

I should have said: the hand that but this day

Was given you in the church I’ll borrow: sound!

This marriage music hoists me from the ground.

Frankford.

Ay, you may caper, you are light and free:

Marriage hath yoked my heels; pray then pardon me.

Sir Francis Acton.

I’ll have you dance too, brother.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Master Frankford,

You are a happy man, sir; and much joy

Succeed your marriage mirth! you have a wife

So qualified, and with such ornaments

Both of the mind and body. First, her birth

Is noble, and her education such

As might become the daughter of a prince:

Her own tongue speaks all tongues, and her own hand

Can teach all strings to speak in their best grace,

From the shrillest treble to the hoarsest base.

To end her many praises in one word,

She’s beauty and perfection’s eldest daughter,

Only found by yours, though many a heart hath sought her.

Frankford.

But that I know your virtues and chaste thoughts,

I should be jealous of your praise, Sir Charles.

Cranwell.

He speaks no more than you approve.

Malby.

Nor flatters he that gives to her her due.

Mistress Frankford.

I would your praise could find a fitter theme

Than my imperfect beauties to speak on:

Such as they be, if they my husband please,

They suffice me now I am marrièd:

His sweet content is like a flattering glass,

To make my face seem fairer to mine eye;

But the least wrinkle from his stormy brow

Will blast the roses in my cheeks that grow.

Sir Francis Acton.

A perfect wife already, meek and patient:

How strangely the word “husband” fits your mouth,

Not married three hours since! Sister, ’tis good;

You, that begin betimes thus, must needs prove

Pliant and duteous in your husband’s love.—

Gramercies, brother, wrought her to’t already;

Sweet husband, and a curtsey, the first day!

Mark this, mark this, you that are bachelors,

And never took the grace of honest man;

Mark this, against you marry, this one phrase:

“In a good time that man both wins and woos,

That takes his wife down in her wedding shoes.”[2]

Frankford.

Your sister takes not after you, Sir Francis;

All his wild blood your father spent on you:

He got her in his age, when he grew civil:

All his mad tricks were to his land entailed,

And you are heir to all; your sister, she

Hath to her dower her mother’s modesty.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Lord, sir, in what a happy state live you!

This morning, which to many seems a burden

Too heavy to bear, is unto you a pleasure.

This lady is no clog, as many are:

She doth become you like a well-made suit,

In which the tailor hath used all his art;

Not like a thick coat of unseasoned frieze,

Forced on your back in summer. She’s no chain

To tie your neck, and curb you to the yoke;

But she’s a chain of gold to adorn your neck.

You both adorn each other, and your hands,

Methinks, are matches: there’s equality

In this fair combination; you are both

Scholars, both young, both being descended nobly.

There’s music in this sympathy; it carries

Consort, and expectation of much joy,

Which God bestow on you, from this first day

Until your dissolution; that’s for aye.

Sir Francis Acton.

We keep you here too long, good brother Frankford.

Into the hall; away! go cheer your guests.

What, bride and bridegroom both withdrawn at once?

If you be missed, the guests will doubt their welcome,

And charge you with unkindness.

Frankford.

To prevent it,

I’ll leave you here, to see the dance within.

Mistress Frankford.

And so will I.

[Exeunt Frankford and Mistress Frankford.

Sir Francis Acton.

To part you, it were sin.

Now, gallants, while the town-musicians

Finger their frets[3] within; and the mad lads

And country-lasses, every mother’s child,

With nosegays and bridelaces in their hats,

Dance all their country measures, rounds, and jigs,

What shall we do? Hark, they are all on the hoigh;[4]

They toil like mill-horses, and turn as round,—

Marry, not on the toe. Ay, and they caper,

Not without cutting; you shall see, to-morrow,

The hall-floor pecked and dinted like a mill-stone,

Made with their high shoes: though their skill be small,

Yet they tread heavy where their hob-nails fall.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Well, leave them to their sports. Sir Francis Acton,

I’ll make a match with you; meet to-morrow

At Chevy-chase, I’ll fly my hawk with yours.

Sir Francis Acton.

For what? For what?

Sir Charles Mountford.

Why, for a hundred pound.

Sir Francis Acton.

Pawn me some gold of that.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Here are ten angels;[5]

I’ll make them good a hundred pound to-morrow

Upon my hawk’s wing.

Sir Francis Acton.

’Tis a match, ’tis done.

Another hundred pound upon your dogs;

Dare ye, Sir Charles?

Sir Charles Mountford.

I dare: were I sure to lose,

I durst do more than that: here is my hand,

The first course for a hundred pound.

Sir Francis Acton.

A match.

Wendoll.

Ten angels on Sir Francis Acton’s hawk;

As much upon his dogs.

Cranwell.

I am for Sir Charles Mountford; I have seen

His hawk and dog both tried. What, clap you hands?

Or is’t no bargain?

Wendoll.

Yes, and stake them down:

Were they five hundred, they were all my own.

Sir Francis Acton.

Be stirring early with the lark to-morrow;[6]

I’ll rise into my saddle ere the sun

Rise from his bed.

Sir Charles Mountford.

If there you miss me, say

I am no gentleman: I’ll hold my day.

Sir Francis Acton.

It holds on all sides. Come, to-night let’s dance,

Early to-morrow let’s prepare to ride;

We had need be three hours up before the bride.

[Exeunt.

Enter Nicholas, Jenkin, Jack Slime, and Roger Brickbat, with Country Wenches, and two or three Musicians.

Jenkin.

Come, Nick, take you Joan Miniver to trace withal; Jack Slime, traverse you with Cicely Milk-pail: I will take Jane Trubkin, and Roger Brickbat shall have Isbel Motley; and now that they are busy in the parlour, come, strike up; we’ll have a crash[7] here in the yard.

Nicholas.

My humour is not compendious; dancing I possess not, though I can foot it; yet, since I am fallen into the hands of Cicely Milk-pail, I consent.

Slime.

Truly Nick, though we were never brought up like serving courtiers, yet we have been brought up with serving creatures, ay, and God’s creatures too; for we have been brought up to serve sheep, oxen, horses, hogs, and such like: and, though we be but country fellows, it may be in the way of dancing we can do the horse-trick as well as serving-men.

Brickbat.

Ay, and the cross-point too.

Jenkin.

O Slime, O Brickbat, do not you know that comparisons are odious? now we are odious ourselves too, therefore there are no comparisons to be made betwixt us.

Nicholas.

I am sudden, and not superfluous;

I am quarrelsome, and not seditious;

I am peaceable, and not contentious;

I am brief, and not compendious.

Slime.

Foot it quickly: if the music overcome not my melancholy, I shall quarrel; and if they do not suddenly strike up, I shall presently strike them down.

Jenkin.

No quarrelling, for God’s sake: truly, if you do, I shall set a knave between ye.

Slime.

I come to dance, not to quarrel. Come, what shall it be? “Rogero?”[8]

Jenkin.

“Rogero!” no; we will dance “The Beginning of the World.”

Cicely.

I love no dance so well as “John come kiss me now.”

Nicholas.

I, that have ere now deserved a cushion, call for the “Cushion-dance.”

Brickbat.

For my part, I like nothing so well as “Tom Tyler.”

Jenkin.

No; we’ll have “The Hunting of the Fox.”

Slime.

“The Hay,” “The Hay;” there’s nothing like “The Hay.”

Nicholas.

I have said, I do say, and I will say again—

Jenkin.

Every man agree to have it as Nick says.

All.

Content.

Nicholas.

It hath been, it now is, and it shall be—

Cicely.

What, Master Nicholas, what?

Nicholas.

“Put on your smock a’ Monday.”

Jenkin.

So the dance will come cleanly off. Come, for God’s sake agree of something: if you like not that, put it to the musicians; or let me speak for all, and we’ll have “Sellenger’s round.”

All.

That, that, that.

Nicholas.

No, I am resolved, thus it shall be:

First take hands, then take ye to your heels.

Jenkin.

Why, would ye have us run away?

Nicholas.

No; but I would have you shake your heels.

Music, strike up!

[They dance. Nicholas whilst dancing speaks stately and scurvily, the rest after the country fashion.

Jenkin.

Hey! lively, my lasses! here’s a turn for thee!

[Exeunt.

Horns wind. Enter Sir Charles Mountford, Sir Francis Acton, Malby, Cranwell, Wendoll, Falconers, and Huntsmen.

Sir Charles Mountford.

So; well cast off: aloft, aloft! well flown!

Oh, now she takes her at the sowse,[9] and strikes her

Down to the earth, like a swift thunder-clap.

Wendoll.

She hath struck ten angels out of my way.

Sir Francis Acton.

A hundred pound from me.

Sir Charles Mountford.

What, falconer!

Falconer.

At hand, sir.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Now she hath seized the fowl, and ’gins to plume her,

Rebeck her not: rather stand still and check her.

So, seize her gets,[10] her jesses,[11] and her bells:

Away!

Sir Francis Acton.

My hawk killed too.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Ay, but ’twas at the querre,[12]

Not at the mount, like mine.

Sir Francis Acton.

Judgment, my masters.

Cranwell.

Yours missed her at the ferre.

Wendoll.

Ay, but our merlin[13] first had plumed the fowl,

And twice renewed her from the river too;

Her bells, Sir Francis, had not both one weight,

Nor was one semi-tune above the other:

Methinks these Milan bells do sound too full,

And spoil the mounting of your hawk.

Sir Charles Mountford.

’Tis lost.

Sir Francis Acton.

I grant it not. Mine likewise seized a fowl

Within her talons; and you saw her paws

Full of the feathers: both her petty singles,

And her long singles gripped her more than other;

The terrials of her legs were stained with blood:

Not of the fowl only, she did discomfit

Some of her feathers; but she brake away.

Come, come, your hawk is but a rifler.

Sir Charles Mountford.

How!

Sir Francis Acton.

Ay, and your dogs are trindle-tails and curs.

Sir Charles Mountford.

You stir my blood.

You keep not one good hound in all your kennel,

Nor one good hawk upon your perch.

Sir Francis Acton.

How, knight!

Sir Charles Mountford.

So, knight: you will not swagger, sir?

Sir Francis Acton.

Why, say I did?

Sir Charles Mountford.

Why, sir,

I say you would gain as much by swaggering,

As you have got by wagers on your dogs:

You will come short in all things.

Sir Francis Acton.

Not in this:

Now I’ll strike home.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Thou shalt to thy long home,

Or I will want my will.

Sir Francis Acton.

All they that love Sir Francis, follow me.

Sir Charles Mountford.

All that affect Sir Charles, draw on my part.

Cranwell.

On this side heaves my hand.

Wendoll.

Here goes my heart.

[They divide themselves. Sir Charles Mountford, Cranwell, Falconer, and Huntsman, fight against Sir Francis Acton, Wendoll, his Falconer, and Huntsman; and Sir Charles’s side gets the better, beating the others away, and killing both of Sir Francis’s men. Exeunt all except Sir Charles.

Sir Charles Mountford.

My God! what have I done? what have I done?

My rage hath plunged into a sea of blood,

In which my soul lies drowned. Poor innocents,

For whom we are to answer! Well, ’tis done,

And I remain the victor. A great conquest,

When I would give this right hand, nay, this head,

To breathe in them new life whom I have slain!

Forgive me, God! ’twas in the heat of blood,

And anger quite removes me from myself:

It was not I, but rage, did this vile murder;

Yet I, and not my rage, must answer it.

Sir Francis Acton he is fled the field;

With him all those that did partake his quarrel,

And I am left alone with sorrow dumb,

And in my height of conquest overcome.

Enter Susan.

Susan.

O God! my brother wounded ’mong the dead!

Unhappy jest, that in such earnest ends:

The rumour of this fear stretched to my ears,

And I am come to know if you be wounded.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Oh! sister, sister, wounded at the heart.

Susan.

My God forbid!

Sir Charles Mountford.

In doing that thing which He forbad,

I am wounded, sister.

Susan.

I hope not at the heart.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Yes, at the heart.

Susan.

O God! a surgeon there!

Sir Charles Mountford.

Call me a surgeon, sister, for my soul;

The sin of murder it hath pierced my heart,

And made a wide wound there: but for these scratches,

They are nothing, nothing.

Susan.

Charles, what have you done?

Sir Francis hath great friends, and will pursue you

Unto the utmost danger of the law.

Sir Charles Mountford.

My conscience is become mine enemy,

And will pursue me more than Acton can.

Susan.

Oh, fly, sweet brother.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Shall I fly from thee?

Why, Sue, art weary of my company?

Susan.

Fly from your foe.

Sir Charles Mountford.

You, sister, are my friend;

And, flying you, I shall pursue my end.

Susan.

Your company is as my eye-ball dear;

Being far from you, no comfort can be near;

Yet fly to save your life: what would I care

To spend my future age in black despair,

So you were safe? and yet to live one week

Without my brother Charles, through every cheek

My streaming tears would downwards run so rank,

Till they could set on either side a bank,

And in the midst a channel; so my face

For two salt-water brooks shall still find place.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Thou shalt not weep so much, for I will stay

In spite of danger’s teeth; I’ll live with thee,

Or I’ll not live at all. I will not sell

My country and my father’s patrimony,

Nor thy sweet sight, for a vain hope of life.

Enter Sheriff, with Officers.

Sheriff.

Sir Charles, I am made the unwilling instrument

Of your attach[14] and apprehension:

I’m sorry that the blood of innocent men

Should be of you exacted. It was told me

That you were guarded with a troop of friends,

And therefore I come thus armed.

Sir Charles Mountford.

O, Master Sheriff,

I came into the field with many friends,

But see, they all have left me: only one

Clings to my sad misfortune, my dear sister.

I know you for an honest gentleman;

I yield my weapons, and submit to you;

Convey me where you please.

Sheriff.

To prison then,

To answer for the lives of these dead men.

Susan.

O God! O God!

Sir Charles Mountford.

Sweet sister, every strain

Of sorrow from your heart augments my pain;

Your grief abounds, and hits against my breast.

Sheriff.

Sir, will you go?

Sir Charles Mountford.

Even where it likes you best.

[Exeunt.

Enter Frankford.

Frankford.

How happy am I amongst other men,

That in my mean estate embrace content!

I am a gentleman, and by my birth,

Companion with a king; a king’s no more.

I am possessed of many fair revenues,

Sufficient to maintain a gentleman.

Touching my mind, I am studied in all arts;

The riches of my thoughts, and of my time,

Have been a good proficient; but the chief

Of all the sweet felicities on earth,

I have a fair, a chaste, and loving wife;

Perfection all, all truth, all ornament:

If man on earth may truly happy be,

Of these at once possessed, sure I am he.

Enter Nicholas.

Nicholas.

Sir, there’s a gentleman attends without

To speak with you.

Frankford.

On horseback?

Nicholas.

Yes, on horseback.

Frankford.

Entreat him to alight, I will attend him.

Know’st thou him, Nick?

Nicholas.

Know him! yes, his name’s Wendoll:

It seems he comes in haste: his horse is booted

Up to the flank in mire, himself all spotted

And stained with plashing. Sure he rid in fear,

Or for a wager: horse and man both sweat;

I ne’er saw two in such a smoking heat.

Frankford.

Entreat him in: about it instantly. [Exit Nicholas.

This Wendoll I have noted, and his carriage

Hath pleased me much: by observation

I have noted many good deserts in him:

He’s affable, and seen[15] in many things,

Discourses well, a good companion;

And though of small means, yet a gentleman

Of a good house, though somewhat pressed by want:

I have preferred him to a second place

In my opinion, and my best regard.

Enter Wendoll, Mistress Frankford, and Nicholas.

Mistress Frankford.

O Master Frankford, Master Wendoll here

Brings you the strangest news that e’er you heard.

Frankford.

What news, sweet wife? What news, good Master Wendoll?

Wendoll.

You knew the match made ’twixt Sir Francis Acton

And Sir Charles Mountford.

Frankford.

True, with their hounds and hawks.

Wendoll.

The matches were both played.

Frankford.

Ha! and which won?

Wendoll.

Sir Francis, your wife’s brother, had the worst,

And lost the wager.

Frankford.

Why, the worse his chance:

Perhaps the fortune of some other day

Will change his luck.

Mistress Frankford.

Oh, but you hear not all.

Sir Francis lost, and yet was loth to yield:

At length the two knights grew to difference,

From words to blows, and so to banding sides;

Where valorous Sir Charles slew in his spleen

Two of your brother’s men; his falconer,

And his good huntsman, whom he loved so well:

More men were wounded, no more slain outright.

Frankford.

Now, trust me, I am sorry for the knight;

But is my brother safe?

Wendoll.

All whole and sound,

His body not being blemished with one wound:

But poor Sir Charles is to the prison led,

To answer at the assize for them that’s dead.

Frankford.

I thank your pains, sir; had the news been better

Your will was to have brought it, Master Wendoll.

Sir Charles will find hard friends; his case is heinous,

And will be most severely censured on[16]:

I’m sorry for him. Sir, a word with you;

I know you, sir, to be a gentleman

In all things; your possibilities but mean:

Please you to use my table and my purse,

They are yours.

Wendoll.

O Lord, sir, I shall never deserve it.

Frankford.

O sir, disparage not your worth too much:

You are full of quality and fair desert:

Choose of my men which shall attend on you,

And he is yours. I will allow you, sir,

Your man, your gelding, and your table, all

At my own charge; be my companion.

Wendoll.

Master Frankford, I have oft been bound to you

By many favours; this exceeds them all,

That I shall never merit your least favour:

But, when your last remembrance I forget,

Heaven at my soul exact that weighty debt!

Frankford.

There needs no protestation; for I know you

Virtuous, and therefore grateful. Prythee, Nan,

Use him with all thy loving’st courtesy.

Mistress Frankford.

As far as modesty may well extend,

It is my duty to receive your friend.

Frankford.

To dinner, come, sir; from this present day,

Welcome to me for ever: come, away.

[Exeunt Frankford, Mistress Frankford, and Wendoll.

Nicholas.

I do not like this fellow by no means:

I never see him but my heart still yearns:

Zounds! I could fight with him, yet know not why:

The devil and he are all one in my eye.

Enter Jenkin.

Jenkin.

O Nick, what gentleman is that comes to lie at our house? my master allows him one to wait on him, and I believe it will fall to thy lot.

Nicholas.

I love my master; by these hilts I do!

But rather than I’ll ever come to serve him,

I’ll turn away my master.

Enter Cicely.

Cicely.

Nich’las, where are you, Nich’las? you must come in, Nich’las, and help the young gentleman off with his boots.

Nicholas.

If I pluck off his boots, I’ll eat the spurs,

And they shall stick fast in my throat like burs.

Cicely.

Then, Jenkin, come you.

Jenkin.

Nay, ’tis no boot for me to deny it. My master hath given me a coat here, but he takes pains himself to brush it once or twice a day with a holly-wand.

Cicely.

Come, come, make haste, that you may wash your hands again, and help to serve in dinner.

Jenkin.

You may see, my masters, though it be afternoon with you, ’tis but early days with us, for we have not dined yet: stay a little, I’ll but go in and help to bear up the first course, and come to you again presently.

[Exeunt.

Enter Malby and Cranwell.

Malby.

This is the sessions-day; pray can you tell me

How young Sir Charles hath sped? Is he acquit,

Or must he try the law’s strict penalty?

Cranwell.

He’s cleared of all, spite of his enemies,

Whose earnest labour was to take his life:

But in this suit of pardon he hath spent

All the revenues that his father left him;

And he is now turned a plain countryman,

Reformed in all things. See, sir, here he comes.

Enter Sir Charles and Keeper.

Keeper.

Discharge your fees, and you are then at freedom.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Here, Master Keeper, take the poor remainder

Of all the wealth I have: my heavy foes

Have made my purse light; but, alas! to me

’Tis wealth enough that you have set me free.

Malby.

God give you joy of your delivery!

I am glad to see you abroad, Sir Charles.

Sir Charles Mountford.

The poorest knight in England, Master Malby:

My life hath cost me all my patrimony

My father left his son: well, God forgive them

That are the authors of my penury.

Enter Shafton.

Shafton.

Sir Charles! a hand, a hand! at liberty?

Now, by the faith I owe, I am glad to see it.

What want you? wherein may I pleasure you?

Sir Charles Mountford.

O me! O most unhappy gentleman!

I am not worthy to have friends stirred up,

Whose hands may help me in this plunge of want.

I would I were in Heaven, to inherit there

The immortal birth-right which my Saviour keeps,

And by no unthrift can be bought and sold;

For here on earth what pleasures should we trust?

Shafton.

To rid you from these contemplations,

Three hundred pounds you shall receive of me;

Nay, five for fail. Come, sir; the sight of gold

Is the most sweet receipt for melancholy,

And will revive your spirits: you shall hold law

With your proud adversaries. Tush, let Frank Acton

Wage with his knighthood like expense with me,

And he will sink, he will. Nay, good Sir Charles,

Applaud your fortune, and your fair escape

From all these perils.

Sir Charles Mountford.

O sir, they have undone me.

Two thousand and five hundred pound a year

My father, at his death, possessed me of;

All which the envious Acton made me spend.

And, notwithstanding all this large expense,

I had much ado to gain my liberty:

And I have only now a house of pleasure,

With some five hundred pounds, reserved

Both to maintain me and my loving sister.

Shafton.

[Aside.] That must I have, it lies convenient for me:

If I can fasten but one finger on him,

With my full hand I’ll gripe him to the heart.

’Tis not for love I proffered him this coin,

But for my gain and pleasure. [Aloud.] Come, Sir Charles,

I know you have need of money; take my offer.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Sir, I accept it, and remain indebted

Even to the best of my unable power.

Come, gentlemen, and see it tendered down.

[Exeunt.

Enter Wendoll melancholy.

Wendoll.

I am a villain if I apprehend

But such a thought: then, to attempt the deed,—

Slave, thou art damned without redemption.

I’ll drive away this passion with a song.

A song! ha, ha: a song! as if, fond man,

Thy eyes could swim in laughter, when thy soul

Lies drenched and drownèd in red tears of blood.

I’ll pray, and see if God within my heart

Plant better thoughts. Why, prayers are meditations;

And when I meditate (O God, forgive me!)

It is on her divine perfections.

I will forget her; I will arm myself

Not to entertain a thought of love to her:

And, when I come by chance into her presence,

I’ll hale these balls until my eye-strings crack,

From being pulled and drawn to look that way.

[Enter over the stage, Frankford, Mistress Frankford, and Nicholas.][17]

O God! O God! with what a violence

I’m hurried to mine own destruction.

There goest thou, the most perfectest man

That ever England bred a gentleman;

And shall I wrong his bed? Thou God of thunder!

Stay in thy thoughts of vengeance and of wrath,

Thy great, almighty, and all-judging hand

From speedy execution on a villain:

A villain, and a traitor to his friend.

Enter Jenkin.

Jenkin.

Did your worship call?

Wendoll.

He doth maintain me, he allows me largely

Money to spend——

Jenkin.

By my faith, so do not you me; I cannot get a cross of you.

Wendoll.

My gelding, and my man——

Jenkin.

That’s Sorrell and I.

Wendoll.

This kindness grows of no alliance ’twixt us——

Jenkin.

Nor is my service of any great acquaintance.

Wendoll.

I never bound him to me by desert:

Of a mere stranger, a poor gentleman,

A man by whom in no kind he could gain,

He hath placed me in the height of all his thoughts,

Made me companion with the best and chiefest

In Yorkshire. He cannot eat without me,

Nor laugh without me: I am to his body

As necessary as his digestion,

And equally do make him whole or sick:

And shall I wrong this man? Base man! ingrate!

Hast thou the power straight with thy gory hands

To rip thy image from his bleeding heart?

To scratch thy name from out the holy book

Of his remembrance; and to wound his name

That holds thy name so dear? or rend his heart

To whom thy heart was knit and joined together?

And yet I must: then, Wendoll, be content;

Thus villains, when they would, cannot repent.

Jenkin.

What a strange humour is my new master in! pray God he be not mad: if he should be so, I should never have any mind to serve him in Bedlam. It may be he’s mad for missing of me.

Wendoll.

[Seeing Jenkin.] What, Jenkin, where’s your mistress?

Jenkin.

Is your worship married?

Wendoll.

Why dost thou ask?

Jenkin.

Because you are my master; and if I have a mistress, I would be glad, like a good servant, to do my duty to her.

Wendoll.

I mean Mistress Frankford.

Jenkin.

Marry, sir, her husband is riding out of town, and she went very lovingly to bring him on his way to horse.[18] Do you see, sir? here she comes, and here I go.

Wendoll.

Vanish.

[Exit Jenkin.

Re-enter Mistress Frankford.

Mistress Frankford.

You are well met, sir; now, in troth, my husband,

Before he took horse, had a great desire

To speak with you: we sought about the house,

Hollaed into the fields, sent every way,

But could not meet you: therefore he enjoined me

To do unto you his most kind commends.

Nay, more; he wills you, as you prize his love,

Or hold in estimation his kind friendship,

To make bold in his absence, and command

Even as himself were present in the house:

For you must keep his table, use his servants,

And be a present Frankford in his absence.

Wendoll.

I thank him for his love.—

Give me a name, you whose infectious tongues

Are tipped with gall and poison: as you would

Think on a man that had your father slain,

Murdered your children, made your wives base strumpets,

So call me, call me so: print in my face

The most stigmatic title of a villain,

For hatching treason to so true a friend. [Aside.

Mistress Frankford.

Sir, you are much beholding[19] to my husband;

You are a man most dear in his regard.

Wendoll.

[Aside.] I am bound unto your husband, and you too.

I will not speak to wrong a gentleman

Of that good estimation, my kind friend:

I will not; zounds! I will not. I may choose,

And I will choose. Shall I be so misled?

Or shall I purchase to my father’s crest

The motto of a villain? If I say

I will not do it, what thing can enforce me?

What can compel me? What sad destiny

Hath such command upon my yielding thoughts?

I will not—Ha! some fury pricks me on,

The swift Fates drag me at their chariot-wheel,

And hurry me to mischief. Speak I must;

Injure myself, wrong her, deceive his trust.

Mistress Frankford.

Are you not well, sir, that you seem thus troubled?

There is sedition in your countenance.

Wendoll.

And in my heart, fair angel, chaste and wise.

I love you: start not, speak not, answer not.

I love you: nay, let me speak the rest:

Bid me to swear, and I will call to record

The host of Heaven.

Mistress Frankford.

The host of Heaven forbid

Wendoll should hatch such a disloyal thought!

Wendoll.

Such is my fate; to this suit I was born,

To wear rich pleasure’s crown, or fortune’s scorn.

Mistress Frankford.

My husband loves you.

Wendoll.

I know it.

Mistress Frankford.

He esteems you

Even as his brain, his eye-ball, or his heart.

Wendoll.

I have tried it.

Mistress Frankford.

His purse is your exchequer, and his table

Doth freely serve you.

Wendoll.

So I have found it.

Mistress Frankford.

O! with what face of brass, what brow of steel,

Can you, unblushing, speak this to the face

Of the espoused wife of so dear a friend?

It is my husband that maintains your state;

Will you dishonour him that in your power

Hath left his whole affairs? I am his wife,

It is to me you speak.

Wendoll.

O speak no more!

For more than this I know, and have recorded

Within the red-leaved table of my heart.

Fair, and of all beloved, I was not fearful

Bluntly to give my life into your hand,

And at one hazard all my earthly means.

Go, tell your husband; he will turn me off,

And I am then undone. I care not, I;

’Twas for your sake. Perchance in rage he’ll kill me:

I care not, ’twas for you. Say I incur

The general name of villain through the world,

Of traitor to my friend; I care not, I.

Beggary, shame, death, scandal, and reproach,

For you I’ll hazard all: why, what care I?

For you I’ll live, and in your love I’ll die.

Mistress Frankford.

You move me, sir, to passion and to pity.

The love I bear my husband is as precious

As my soul’s health.

Wendoll.

I love your husband too,

And for his love I will engage my life:

Mistake me not, the augmentation

Of my sincere affection borne to you

Doth no whit lessen my regard of him.

I will be secret, lady, close as night;

And not the light of one small glorious star

Shall shine here in my forehead, to bewray

That act of night.

Mistress Frankford.

What shall I say?

My soul is wandering, and hath lost her way.

Oh, Master Wendoll! Oh!

Wendoll.

Sigh not, sweet saint;

For every sigh you breathe draws from my heart

A drop of blood.

Mistress Frankford.

I ne’er offended yet:

My fault, I fear, will in my brow be writ.

Women that fall, not quite bereft of grace,

Have their offences noted in their face.

I blush and am ashamed. Oh, Master Wendoll,

Pray God I be not born to curse your tongue,

That hath enchanted me! This maze I am in

I fear will prove the labyrinth of sin.

Re-enter Nicholas behind.

Wendoll.

The path of pleasure, and the gate to bliss,

Which on your lips I knock at with a kiss.

Nicholas.

[Aside.] I’ll kill the rogue.

Wendoll.

Your husband is from home, your bed’s no blab.

Nay, look not down and blush.

[Exeunt Wendoll and Mistress Frankford.

Nicholas.

Zounds! I’ll stab.

Ay, Nick, was it thy chance to come just in the nick?

I love my master, and I hate that slave:

I love my mistress, but these tricks I like not.

My master shall not pocket up this wrong;

I’ll eat my fingers first. What say’st thou, metal?

Does not the rascal Wendoll go on legs

That thou must cut off? Hath he not ham-strings

That thou must hough? Nay, metal, thou shalt stand

To all I say. I’ll henceforth turn a spy,

And watch them in their close conveyances.

I never looked for better of that rascal,

Since he came miching[20] first into our house:

It is that Satan hath corrupted her,

For she was fair and chaste. I’ll have an eye

In all their gestures. Thus I think of them,

If they proceed as they have done before:

Wendoll’s a knave, my mistress is a—— [Exit.

Enter Sir Charles Mountford and Susan.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Sister, you see we are driven to hard shift

To keep this poor house we have left unsold;

I am now enforced to follow husbandry,

And you to milk; and do we not live well?

Well, I thank God.

Susan.

O brother, here’s a change,

Since old Sir Charles died, in our father’s house!

Sir Charles Mountford.

All things on earth thus change, some up, some down;

Content’s a kingdom, and I wear that crown.

Enter Shafton with a Serjeant.

Shafton.

Good morrow, morrow, Sir Charles: what, with your sister,

Plying your husbandry?—Serjeant, stand off.—

You have a pretty house here, and a garden,

And goodly ground about it. Since it lies

So near a lordship that I lately bought,

I would fain buy it of you. I will give you——

Sir Charles Mountford.

O, pardon me: this house successively

Hath ’longed to me and my progenitors

Three hundred years. My great-great-grandfather,

He in whom first our gentle style began,

Dwelt here; and in this ground, increased this mole-hill

Unto that mountain which my father left me.

Where he the first of all our house began,

I now the last will end, and keep this house,

This virgin title, never yet deflowered

By any unthrift of the Mountfords’ line.

In brief, I will not sell it for more gold

Than you could hide or pave the ground withal.

Shafton.

Ha, ha! a proud mind and a beggar’s purse!

Where’s my three hundred pounds, besides the use?

I have brought it to an execution

By course of law: what, is my moneys ready?

Sir Charles Mountford.

An execution, sir, and never tell me

You put my bond in suit! you deal extremely.

Shafton.

Sell me the land, and I’ll acquit you straight.

Sir Charles Mountford.

Alas, alas! ’tis all trouble hath left me

To cherish me and my poor sister’s life.

If this were sold, our names should then be quite

Razed from the bed-roll[21] of gentility.

You see what hard shift we have made to keep it

Allied still to our own name. This palm, you see,

Labour hath glowed within: her silver brow,

That never tasted a rough winter’s blast

Without a mask or fan, doth with a grace

Defy cold winter, and his storms outface.

Susan.

Sir, we feed sparing, and we labour hard,

We lie uneasy, to reserve to us

And our succession this small plot of ground.

Sir Charles Mountford.

I have so bent my thoughts to husbandry,

That I protest I scarcely can remember

What a new fashion is; how silk or satin

Feels in my hand: why, pride is grown to us

A mere, mere stranger. I have quite forgot

The names of all that ever waited on me;

I cannot name ye any of my hounds,

Once from whose echoing mouths I heard all music

That e’er my heart desired. What should I say?

To keep this place I have changed myself away.

Shafton.

[To the Serjeant.] Arrest him at my suit. Actions and actions

Shall keep thee in perpetual bondage fast:

Nay, more, I’ll sue thee by a late appeal,

And call thy former life in question.

The keeper is my friend, thou shalt have irons,

And usage such as I’ll deny to dogs:

Away with him!

Sir Charles Mountford.

[To Susan.] You are too timorous:

But trouble is my master,

And I will serve him truly.—My kind sister,

Thy tears are of no force to mollify

This flinty man. Go to my father’s brother,

My kinsmen and allies; entreat them for me,

To ransom me from this injurious man,

That seeks my ruin.

Shafton.

Come, irons, irons! come away;

I’ll see thee lodged far from the sight of day.

[Exeunt Shafton and Serjeant with Sir Charles.

Susan.

My heart’s so hardened with the frost of grief,

Death cannot pierce it through. Tyrant too fell!

So lead the fiends condemnèd souls to hell.

Enter Sir Francis Acton and Malby.

Sir Francis Acton.

Again to prison! Malby, hast thou seen

A poor slave better tortured? Shall we hear

The music of his voice cry from the grate,[22]

“Meat for the Lord’s sake”? No, no, yet I am not

Throughly revenged. They say he hath a pretty wench

Unto his sister: shall I, in mercy-sake

To him and to his kindred, bribe the fool

To shame herself by lewd dishonest lust?

I’ll proffer largely; but, the deed being done,

I’ll smile to see her base confusion.

Malby.

Methinks, Sir Francis, you are full revenged

For greater wrongs than he can proffer you.

See where the poor sad gentlewoman stands.

Sir Francis Acton.

Ha, ha! now will I flout her poverty,

Deride her fortunes, scoff her base estate;

My very soul the name of Mountford hates.

But stay, my heart! oh, what a look did fly

To strike my soul through with thy piercing eye!

I am enchanted; all my spirits are fled,

And with one glance my envious spleen struck dead.

Susan.

Acton! that seeks our blood. [Runs away.

Sir Francis Acton.

O chaste and fair!

Malby.

Sir Francis, why, Sir Francis, zounds! in a trance?

Sir Francis, what cheer, man? Come, come, how is’t?

Sir Francis Acton.

Was she not fair? Or else this judging eye

Cannot distinguish beauty.

Malby.

She was fair.

Sir Francis Acton.

She was an angel in a mortal’s shape,

And ne’er descended from old Mountford’s line.

But soft, soft, let me call my wits together.

A poor, poor wench, to my great adversary

Sister, whose very souls denounce stern war,

One against other. How now, Frank? turned fool

Or madman, whether? But no; master of

My perfect senses and directest wits.

Then why should I be in this violent humour

Of passion and of love; and with a person

So different every way, and so opposed

In all contractions, and still-warring actions?

Fie, fie; how I dispute against my soul!

Come, come; I’ll gain her, or in her fair quest

Purchase my soul free and immortal rest.

[Exeunt.

Enter Serving-Men, one with a voider and a wooden knife[23] to take away; another with the salt and bread; another with the table-cloth and napkins; another with the carpet:[24] Jenkin follows them with two lights.

Jenkin.

So, march in order, and retire in battle array. My master and the guests have supped already, all’s taken away: here, now spread for the serving-men in the hall. Butler, it belongs to your office.

Butler.

I know it, Jenkin. What d’ye call the gentleman that supped there to-night?

Jenkin.

Who, my master?

Butler.

No, no; Master Wendoll, he’s a daily guest: I mean the gentleman that came but this afternoon.

Jenkin.

His name’s Master Cranwell. God’s light, hark, within there, my master calls to lay more billets upon the fire. Come, come! Lord, how we that are in office here in the house are troubled! One spread the carpet in the parlour, and stand ready to snuff the lights; the rest be ready to prepare their stomachs. More lights in the hall there. Come, Nich’las.

[Exeunt all but Nicholas.

Nicholas.

I cannot eat, but had I Wendoll’s heart

I would eat that; the rogue grows impudent.

Oh, I have seen such vile notorious tricks,

Ready to make my eyes dart from my head.

I’ll tell my master, by this air I will!

Fall what may fall, I’ll tell him. Here he comes.

Enter Frankford, brushing the crumbs from his clothes with a napkin, as newly risen from supper.

Frankford.

Nicholas, what make you here? why are not you

At supper in the hall among your fellows?

Nicholas.

Master, I stayed your rising from the board,

To speak with you.

Frankford.

Be brief, then, gentle Nicholas;

My wife and guests attend me in the parlour.

Why dost thou pause? Now, Nicholas, you want money,

And, unthrift-like, would eat into your wages

Ere you have earned it: here, sir, ’s half a crown;

Play the good husband,[25] and away to supper.

Nicholas.

By this hand, an honourable gentleman! I will not see him wronged.—Sir, I have served you long; you entertained me seven years before your beard.[26] You knew me, sir, before you knew my mistress.

Frankford.

What of this, good Nicholas?

Nicholas.

I never was a make-bate[27] or a knave;

I have no fault but one: I’m given to quarrel,

But not with women. I will tell you, master,

That which will make your heart leap from your breast,

Your hair to startle from your head, your ears to tingle.

Frankford.

What preparation’s this to dismal news?

Nicholas.

’Sblood, sir! I love you better than your wife;

I’ll make it good.

Frankford.

You are a knave, and I have much ado

With wonted patience to contain my rage,

And not to break thy pate. Thou art a knave:

I’ll turn you, with your base comparisons,

Out of my doors.

Nicholas.

Do, do: there is not room

For Wendoll and for me both in one house.

Oh master, master, that Wendoll is a villain.

Frankford.

Ay, saucy!

Nicholas.

Strike, strike; do, strike; yet hear me: I am no fool,

I know a villain, when I see him act

Deeds of a villain. Master, master, that base slave

Enjoys my mistress, and dishonours you.

Frankford.

Thou hast killed me with a weapon whose sharp point

Hath pricked quite through and through my shivering heart:

Drops of cold sweat sit dangling on my hairs,

Like morning’s dew upon the golden flowers,

And I am plunged into strange agonies.

What didst thou say? If any word that touched

His credit or her reputation,

It is as hard to enter my belief

As Dives into heaven.

Nicholas.

I can gain nothing;

They are two that never wronged me. I knew before

’Twas but a thankless office, and perhaps

As much as is my service, or my life

Is worth. All this I know; but this and more,

More by a thousand dangers, could not hire me

To smother such a heinous wrong from you.

I saw, and I have said.

Frankford.

[Aside.] ’Tis probable; though blunt, yet he is honest:

Though I durst pawn my life, and on their faith

Hazard the dear salvation of my soul,

Yet in my trust I may be too secure.

May this be true? O, may it, can it be?

Is it by any wonder possible?

Man, woman, what thing mortal may we trust,

When friends and bosom wives prove so unjust?—

[To Nicholas.] What instance hast thou of this strange report?

Nicholas.

Eyes, eyes.

Frankford.

Thy eyes may be deceived, I tell thee:

For, should an angel from the heavens drop down,

And preach this to me that thyself hast told,

He should have much ado to win belief;

In both their loves I am so confident.

Nicholas.

Shall I discourse the same by circumstance?

Frankford.

No more! to supper, and command your fellows

To attend us and the strangers. Not a word,

I charge thee on thy life: be secret then,

For I know nothing.

Nicholas.

I am dumb; and, now that I have eased my stomach,

I will go fill my stomach.

Frankford.

Away; be gone. [Exit Nicholas.

She is well born, descended nobly;

Virtuous her education, her repute

Is in the general voice of all the country

Honest and fair; her carriage, her demeanour,

In all her actions that concern the love

To me her husband, modest, chaste, and godly.

Is all this seeming gold plain copper?

But he, that Judas that hath borne my purse,

And sold me for a sin!—O God! O God!

Shall I put up these wrongs? No. Shall I trust

The bare report of this suspicious groom,

Before the double-gilt, the well-hatched ore

Of their two hearts? No, I will lose these thoughts:

Distraction I will banish from my brow,

And from my looks exile sad discontent,

Their wonted favours in my tongue shall flow;

Till I know all, I’ll nothing seem to know.

Lights and a table there! Wife, Master Wendoll,

And gentle Master Cranwell.

Enter Mistress Frankford, Wendoll, Cranwell, Nicholas, and Jenkin, with cards, carpets, stools, and other necessaries.

Frankford.

O Master Cranwell, you are a stranger here,

And often baulk my house: faith, y’are a churl:

Now we have supped, a table, and to cards.

Jenkin.

A pair of cards,[28] Nicholas, and a carpet to cover the table. Where’s Cicely with her counters and her box? Candles and candlesticks there! Fie, we have such a household of serving creatures! unless it be Nick and I, there’s not one amongst them all can say bo to a goose. Well said,[29] Nick.

[They spread a carpet, set down lights and cards.

Mistress Frankford.

Come, Master Frankford, who shall take my part?

Frankford.

Marry, that will I, sweet wife.

Wendoll.

No, by my faith, sir; when you are together I sit out: it must be Mistress Frankford and I, or else it is no match.

Frankford.

I do not like that match.

Nicholas.

[Aside.] You have no reason, marry, knowing all.

Frankford.

’Tis no great matter neither. Come, Master Cranwell, shall you and I take them up?

Cranwell.

At your pleasure, sir.

Frankford.

I must look to you, Master Wendoll, for you will be playing false; nay, so will my wife too.

Nicholas.

[Aside.] Ay, I will be sworn she will.

Mistress Frankford.

Let them that are taken playing false, forfeit the set.

Frankford.

Content; it shall go hard but I’ll take you.

Cranwell.

Gentlemen, what shall our game be?

Wendoll.

Master Frankford, you play best at noddy.[30]