Bedlam (the causer of these harms), Hodge, Gammer Gurton's servant, Tyb her maid, Cocke, her 'prentice boy, Doll, Scapethrift, Master Baillie his master, Doctor Rat, the Curate, and Gib the Cat, who may be fairly reckoned one of the dramatis persona, and performs no mean part.

Gog's crosse, Gammer" (says Cocke the boy), "if ye will laugh, look in but at the door,

And see how Hodge lieth tumbling and tossing amidst the floor,

Raking there, some fire to find among the ashes dead"

[That is, to light a candle to look for the lost needle], "Where there is not a spark so big as a pin's head: At last in a dark corner two sparks he thought he sees, Which were indeed nought else but Gib our cat's two eyes. Puff, quoth Hodge; thinking thereby to have fire without doubt;

With that Gib shut her two eyes, and so the fire was out;
And by and by them open'd, even as they were before,

With that the sparks appeared, even as they had done of yore:
And even as Hodge blew the fire, as he did think,
Gib, as he felt the blast, strait way began to wink;
Till Hodge fell of swearing, as came best to his turn;
The fire was sure bewitch'd, and therefore would not burn.
At last Gib up the stairs, among old posts and pins,
And Hodge he hied him after, till broke were both his shins;
Cursing and swearing oaths, were never of his making,
That Gib would fire the house, if that she were not taken."

Diccon, the strolling beggar (or Bedlam, as he is called) steals a piece of bacon from behind Gammer Gurton's door, and in answer to Hodge's

Р

complaint of being dreadfully pinched for hunger, asks

"Why Hodge, was there none at home thy dinner for to set? Hodge. Gog's bread, Diccon, I came too late, was no

thing there to get:

Gib (a foul fiend might on her light) lick'd the milk-pan so clean :

See Diccon, 'twas not so well wash'd this seven year, I ween. A pestilence light on all ill luck, I had thought yet for all

this,

Of a morsel of bacon behind the door, at worst I should not

miss:

But when I sought a slip to cut, as I was wont to do,
Gog's souls, Diccon, Gib our cat had eat the bacon too."

Hodge's difficulty in making Diccon understand what the needle is which his dame has lost, shews his superior acquaintance with the conveniences and modes of abridging labour in more civilised life, of which the other had no idea.

Hodge. Has she not gone, trowest now thou, and lost her neele?" [So it is called here.]

"Dic. (says staring). Her eel, Hodge! Who fished of late? That was a dainty dish.

Hodge. Tush, tush, her neele, her neele, her neele, man, 'tis neither flesh nor fish:

A little thing with a hole in the end, as bright as any siller [silver],

Small, long, sharp at the point, and strait as any pillar.

Dic. I know not what a devil thou meanest, thou bring'st me more in doubt.

Hodge (answers with disdain). Know'st not with what Tom tailor's man sits broching through a clout?, A neele, a neele, my Gammer's neele is gone."

The rogue Diccon threatens to shew Hodge a spirit; but though Hodge runs away through pure fear before it has time to appear, he does not fail, in the true spirit of credulity, to give a faithful and alarming account of what he did not see to his mistress, concluding with a hit at the Popish Clergy.

By the mass, I saw him of late call up a great black devil. Oh, the knave cried, ho, ho, he roared and he thunder'd; And ye had been there, I am sure you'd murrainly ha' wonder'd.

Gam. Wast not thou afraid, Hodge, to see him in his place? Hodge (lies and says). No, and he had come to me, should have laid him on his face,

Should have promised him.

Gam. But, Hodge, had he no horns to push?

Hodge. As long as your two arms. Saw ye never Friar

Rush,

Painted on a cloth, with a fine long cow's tail,

And crooked cloven feet, and many a hooked nail?

For all the world (if I should judge) should reckon him his brother:

Look even what face Friar Rush had, the devil had such another."

He then adds (quite apocryphally) while he is in for it, that" the devil said plainly that Dame Chat had got the needle," which makes all the

disturbance. The same play contains the wellknown good old song, beginning and ending

"Back and side, go bare, go bare,

Both foot and hand go cold:

But belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.

I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;

But sure I think, that I can drink
With him that wears a hood:

Though I go bare, take ye no care;

I nothing am a-cold:

I stuff my skin so full within
Of jolly good ale and old.

Back and side go bare, &c.

I love no roast, but a nut-brown toast,
And a crab laid in the fire:

A little bread shall do me stead,

Much bread I not desire.

No frost nor snow, no wind I trow,

Can hurt me if I wolde,

I am so wrapt and thoroughly lapt

In jolly good ale and old.
Back and side go bare, &c.

And Tib, my wife, that as her life
Loveth well good ale to seek ;
Full oft drinks she, till ye may see
The tears run down her cheek:
Then doth she troll to me the bowl,
Even as a malt-worm sholde:

And saith, sweetheart, I took my part
Of this jolly good ale and old.

Back and side go bare, go bare,

Both foot and hand go cold:

But belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.

Such was the wit, such was the mirth of our ancestors :-homely, but hearty; coarse perhaps, but kindly. Let no man despise it, for "Evil to him that evil thinks." To think it poor and beneath notice because it is not just like ours, is the same sort of hypercriticism that was exercised by the person who refused to read some old books, because they were "such very poor spelling." The meagreness of their literary or their bodily fare was at least relished by themselves; and this is better than a surfeit or an indigestion. It is refreshing to look out of ourselves sometimes, not to be always holding the glass to our own peerless perfections and as there is a dead wall which always intercepts the prospect of the future from our view (all that we can see beyond it is the heavens), it is as well to direct our eyes now and then without scorn to the page of history, and repulsed in our attempts to penetrate the secrets of the next six thousand years, not to turn our backs on old long syne

!

The other detached plays of nearly the same period of which I proposed to give a cursory account, are Green's Tu Quoque, Microcosmus,