A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xi Part 72

STAINES. Yes, sir.

BUB. O intolerable rascal! I will presently be made a justice of peace, and have thee whipped. Go, fetch a constable.

STAINES. Come, y' are a flourishing a.s.s: serjeant, take him to thee, he has had a long time of his pageantry.

SIR LIONEL. Sirrah, let him go; I'll be his bail for all debts which come against him.

STAINES. Reverend sir, to whom I owe the duty of a son, Which I shall ever pay in my obedience; Know, that which made him gracious in your eyes, And gilded over his imperfections, Is wasted and consumed even like ice, Which by the vehemence of heat dissolves, And glides to many rivers: so his wealth, That felt a prodigal hand, hot in expense, Melted within his gripe, and from his coffers Ran like a violent stream to other men's.

What was my own, I catch'd at.

SIR LIONEL. Have you your mortgage in?

STAINES. Yes, sir.

SIR LIONEL. Stand up: the matter is well amended.

Master Geraldine, give you sufferance to this match?

OLD GERA. Yes, marry do I, sir; for, since they love, I'll not have the crime lie on my head, To divide man and wife.

SIR LIONEL. Why, you say well: my blessing fall upon you.

WID. And upon us that love, Sir Lionel.

SIR LIONEL. By my troth, since thou hast ta'en the young knave, G.o.d give thee joy of him, and may he prove A wiser man than his master.

STAINES. Serjeant, why dost not carry him to prison?

SER. Sir Lionel Rash will bail him.

SIR LIONEL. I bail him, knave! wherefore should I bail him?

No, carry him away, I'll relieve no prodigals.

BUB. Good Sir Lionel, I beseech you, sir! gentlemen, I pray, make a purse for me.

SER. Come, sir, come, are you begging?

BUB. Why, that does you no harm. Gervase--master, I should say--some compa.s.sion.

STAINES. Serjeants, come back with him. Look, sir, here is Your livery; If you can put off all your former pride, And put on this with that humility That you first wore it, I will pay your debts, Free you of all enc.u.mbrances, And take you again into my service.

BUB. Tenterhook, let me go. I will take his worship's offer without wages, rather than come into your clutches again: a man in a blue coat may have some colour for his knavery; in the Compter he can have none.

SIR LIONEL. But now, Master Scattergood, what say you to this?

SCAT. Marry, I say, 'tis scarce honest dealing, for any man to coneycatch another man's wife: I protest we'll not put it up.

STAINES. No! which _we_?

SCAT. Why, Gertrude and I.

STAINES. Gertrude! why, she'll put it up.

SCAT. Will she?

GERA. Ay, that she will, and so must you.

SCAT. Must I?

GERA. Yes, that you must.

SCAT. Well, if I must, I must; but I protest I would not, But that I must: so _vale, vale: et tu quoque_. [_Exit._

SIR LIONEL. Why, that's well said: Then I perceive we shall wind up all wrong.

Come, gentlemen, and all our other guests, Let our well-temper'd bloods taste Bacchus' feasts; But let us know first how these sports delight, And to these gentlemen each bid good night.[217]

W. RASH. Gentles, I hope, that well my labour ends; All that I did was but to please my friends.

GERA. A kind enamoret I did strive to prove, But now I leave that and pursue your love.

GERT. My part I have performed with the rest, And, though I have not, yet I would do best.

STAINES. That I have cheated through the play, 'tis true: But yet I hope I have not cheated you.

JOYCE. If with my clamours I have done you wrong, Ever hereafter I will hold my tongue.

SPEND. If through my riot I have offensive been, Henceforth I'll play the civil citizen.

WID. Faith, all that I say is, howe'er it hap, Widows, like maids, sometimes may catch a clap.

BUB. To mirth and laughter henceforth I'll provoke ye, If you but please to like of Green's _Tu quoque_.[218]

FOOTNOTES:

[153]: See note 76 to "The Ordinary," [vol. xii.]

[154] [_i.e._, shillings. See the next page.]

[155] At the time this play was written, the same endeavours were used, and the same lures thrown out, to tempt adventurers to migrate to each of these places.

[156] Pirates are always hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping; and at the moment when the tide is at the [ebb].--_Steevens_.

The following pa.s.sage is from Stow's "Survey," vol. ii. b. 4, p. 37, edit. 1720: "From this Precinct of St Katharine to Wappin in the Wose, and Wappin it self, the usual Place of Execution for hanging of Pirates and Sea-Rovers _at the low-Water Mark_, there to remain till three Tides had overflowed them, was never a House standing within these Forty Years (_i.e._, from the year 1598), but (since the Gallows being after removed further off) is now a continual Street, or rather a filthy straight Pa.s.sage, with Lanes and Alleys of small Tenements or Cottages, inhabited by Saylors and Victuallers along by the River of Thames almost to Radcliff, a good Mile from the Tower."

[157] The old copies give it--

"_We_ suck'd a white leaf from my black-lipp'd pen."

--_Collier._