THE TWO ANGRY WOMEN OF
ABINGDON, A COMEDY:

BY HENRY PORTER, 1599.

Proverb-monger.

THIS formal fool, your man, speaks nought but proverbs,

And speak men what they can to him, he 'll answer
With some rhyme rotten sentence or old saying,
Such spokes as the ancient of the parish use,
With "Neighbour, 't is an old proverb and a true,
Goose giblets are good meat, old sack better than

Then says another, "Neighbour, that is true;
And when each man hath drunk his gallon round,
A penny pot, for that 's the old man's gallon,
Then doth he lick his lips, and stroke his beard
That's glued together with the slavering drops.
Of yesty ale, and when he scarce can trim
His gouty fingers, thus he 'll fillip it,
And with a rotten hem say, "Hey, my hearts,
Merry go sorry! Cock and pie, my hearts!"
And then their saving penny proverb comes,
And that is this, "They that will to the wine,
By our lady mistress, shall lay their penny to mine."
This was one of this penny-father's bastards,
For, on my life, he was never begot

Without the consent of some great proverb-monger.

She-wit.

Why, she will flout the devil, and make blush
The boldest face of man that e'er man saw;
He that hath best opinion of his wit,

And hath his brain-pan fraught with bitter jests
Or of his own, or stol'n, or howsoever,

Let him stand ne'er so high in his own conceit,
Her wit's a sun that melts him down like butter,
And makes him sit at table pancake-wise,

Flat, flat, God knows, and ne'er a word to say;
Yet she 'll not leave him then, but like a tyrant
She 'll persecute the poor wit-beaten man,
And so be-bang him with dry bobs and scoffs,
When he is down, most cowardly, good faith,
As I have pitied the poor patient.

There came a farmer's son a-wooing to her,
A proper man, well-landed too he was,
A man that for his wit need not to ask
What time a year 't were need to sow his oats
Nor yet his barley, no, nor when to reap,
To plough his fallows, or to fell his trees,
Well-experienc'd thus each kind of way;
After a two months' labour at the most,
And yet 't was well he held it out so long,
He left his love, she had so laced his lips
He could say nothing to her but "God be with ye!"
Why, she, when men have din'd, and call for cheese,
Will straight maintain jests bitter to digest;
And then some one will fall to argument,
Who, if he over-master her with reason,
Then she 'll begin to buffet him with mocks.

MASTER GOURSEY proposes to his son a wife.

Frank Goursey. Ne'er trust me, father, the shape of marriage,

Which I do see in others, seems so severe,

I dare not put my youngling liberty

Under the awe of that instruction;
And yet I grant the limits of free youth
Going astray are often restrain'd by that.
But mistress wedlock, to my summer thoughts,
Will be too curst, I fear: O, should she snip
My pleasure-aiming mind, I shall be sad,

And swear, when I did marry, I was mad!

Old Goursey. But, boy, let my experience teach thee

this

Yet, in good faith, thou speak'st not much amiss ;-
When first thy mother's fame to me did come,
Thy grandsire thus then came to me his son,
And even my words to thee to me he said,
And as thou say'st to him I said,

But in a greater huff and hotter blood,-
I tell ye, on youth's tiptoes then I stood :
Says he (good faith, this was his very say),
"When I was young, I was but reason's fool,

And went to wedding as to wisdom's school;
It taught me much, and much I did forget,
But, beaten much, by it I got some wit;
Though I was shackled from an often scout,
Yet I would wanton it when I was out;
'T was comfort, old acquaintance then to meet,
Restrained liberty attain'd is sweet."
Thus said my father to thy father, son,
And thou mayst do this too, as I have done.

Wandering in the dark all night.

O, when will this same year of night have end?
Long look'd for day's sun, when wilt thou ascend?
Let not this thief friend, misty veil of night
Encroach on day, and shadow thy fair light,
Whilst thou com'st tardy from thy Thetis' bed,
Blushing forth golden hair and glorious red;
O, stay not long, bright lantern of the day,
To light my mist way feet to my right way!

[The pleasant comedy, from which these extracts are taken, is contemporary with some of the earliest of Shakspeare's, and is no whit inferior to either the Comedy of Errors, or the Taming of the Shrew, for instance. It is full of business, humour and merry malice. Its night-scenes are peculiarly sprightly and wakeful; the versification unencumbered, and rich with compound epithets.

Why do we go on with ever-new editions of Ford, and Massinger, and the thrice-reprinted Selections of Dodsley? what we want is as many volumes more as these latter consist of, filled with plays (such as this), of which we know comparatively nothing. Not a third part of the treasures of old English dramatic literature has been exhausted. Are we afraid that the genius of Shakspeare would suffer in our estimate by the disclosure? He would indeed be somewhat lessened as a miracle and a prodigy. But he would lose no height by the confession. When a giant is shown to us, does it detract from the curiosity to be told that he has at home a gigantic brood of brethren, less only than himself? Along with him, nor from him, sprang up the race of mighty dramatists, who, compared with the Otways and Rowes that followed, were as Miltons to a Young or an Akenside. That he was their elder brother, not their parent, is evident from the fact of the very few direct imitations of him to be found in their writings. Webster, Decker, Heywood, and the rest of his great contemporaries went on their own ways, and followed their individual impulses, not blindly prescribing to themselves his track. Marlowe, the true (though imperfect) father of our tragedy, preceded him. The comedy of Fletcher is essentially unlike to that of his. "T is out of no detracting spirit that I speak thus, for the plays of Shakspeare have been the strongest and the sweetest food of my mind from infancy; but I resent the comparative obscurity in which some of his most valuable co-operators remain, who were his dear intimates, his stage and his chamber-fellows while he lived, and to whom his gentle spirit doubtlessly then awarded the full portion of their genius, as from them toward himself appears to have been no grudging of his acknowledged excellence.]

TWO TRAGEDIES IN ONE:

BY ROBERT YARRINGTON, WHO WROTE IN THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

Truth, the Chorus, to the spectators.

ALL you, the sad spectators of this act,
Whose hearts do taste a feeling pensiveness
Of this unheard-of savage massacre,
Oh be far off to harbour such a thought
As this audacious murderer put in use!
I see your sorrows flow up to the brim,
And overflow your cheeks with brinish tears,

But though this sight bring surfeit to the eye,
Delight your ears with pleasing harmony.
That ears may countercheck your eyes, and say,
"Why shed you tears? this deed is but a Play.” 1

Murderer to his sister, about to stow away the trunk of the body, having severed it from the limbs.

Hark, Rachel, I will cross the water straight,
And fling this middle mention of a man

In some ditch.

[It is curious, that this old play comprises the distinct action of two atrocities; the one a vulgar murder, committed in our own Thames-street, with the names and incidents truly and historically set down; the other a murder in high life, supposed to be acting at the same time in Italy, the scenes alternating between that country and England: the story of the latter is, mutatis mutandis, no other than that of our own "Babes in the Wood," transferred to Italy, from delicacy no doubt to some of the family of the rich wicked uncle, who might yet be living. The treatment of the two differs as the romance-like narratives in "God's Revenge against Murder," in which the actors of the murders (with the trifling exception that they were murderers) are represented as most accomplished and every way amiable young gentlefolks of either sex-as much as that differs from the honest unglossing pages of the homely Newgate Ordinary.]

THE DOWNFALL OF ROBERT, EARL OF HUNTINGDON, AN HISTORICAL PLAY:

BY HENRY CHETTLE AND ANTHONY MUNDAY, 1601.

CHORUS; SKELTON, the Poet.

Skelton (to the audience). This youth that leads yon virgin by the hand

As doth the sun, the morning richly clad,

1 The whole theory of the reason of our delight in tragic representations, which has cost so many elaborate chapters of criticism, is condensed in these four last lines.-Aristotle quintessentialised.