BARTHOLOMEW FAIR.

1614.

THE BALLAD OF THE CUT-PURSE.*

My friend,
MY

Y masters, and friends, and good people, draw near,
And look to your purses for that I do say;
And though little money in them you do bear,

It cost more to get, than to lose in a day.

* In the Roxburghe collection there is a ballad with the following title: A Caveat for Cut-Purses. With a warning to all purse carriers, shewing the confidence of the first, and the carelessness of the last, with necessary admonitions for them both, lest the hangman get the one, and the beggar the other.' Mr. Collier observes upon it that 'this singular ballad preceded the Restoration, and indeed the civil wars, and the mention in it of Dun, the public hangman, is one proof of its date;' and he adds,' it is to be observed that the ballad singer speaks in his own person; and, were it not for the conclusion, we might suppose that the production was a 'jig' which had been performed by a comic actor at the Curtain, the Red Bull, or some other popular place of amusement.' It escaped Mr. Collier that the first five stanzas are in Ben Jonson's play of Bartholomew Fair, acted for the first time on the 31st October, 1614, at the Hope theatre, Bankside. The song is sung by Nightingale, a ballad singer in the fair, and immediately afterwards Edgworth, a cut-purse, puts its doctrines into practice by picking the pocket of a country-gentleman, and handing over the purse he has stolen to the ballad singer. The additional verses in the broad sheet, containing the allusion to Dun, the hangman, who seems to have succeeded to his office in 1616, two years after the play was produced, were evidently added afterwards. They extend the ballad to ten verses, and run as follow:

The players do tell you, in Bartholomew Fair,
What secret consumptions and rascals you are;
For one of their actors, it seems, had the fate
By some of your trade to be fleeced of late:
Then fall to your prayers,

You that are way-layers,

They're fit to choose all the world that can cheat players; For he hath the art, and no man the worse,

Whose cunning can pilfer the pilferer's purse.

Youth, youth, &c.

The plain countryman that comes staring to London,
If once you come near him he quickly is undone,

For when he amazedly gazeth about,

One treads on his toes, and the other pulls it out:
Then in a strange place,

Where he knows no face,

You oft have been told,

Both the young and the old,

And bidden beware of the Cut-purse so bold! Then if you take heed not, free me from the curse, Who both give you warning, for, and the Cut-purse. Youth, youth, thou hadst better been starved by thy Than live to be hanged for cutting a purse. [nurse,

It hath been upbraided to men of my trade,

That oftentimes we are the cause of this crime:

Alack, and for pity! why should it be said,
As if they regarded or places or time?

The Devil in hell in his trade is not worse,
Than Gilter, and Diver, and Cutter of purse.
Youth, youth, &c.

The poor servant maid wears her purse in her placket,
A place of quick feeling, and yet you can take it;
Nor is she aware that you have done the feat,

Until she is going to pay for her meat;

Then she cries and rages

Amongst the baggages,

And swears at one thrust she hath lost all her wages;
For she is engaged her own to disburse,

To make good the breach of the cruel Cut-purse.

Youth, youth, &c.

Your eyes and your fingers are nimble of growth,

But Dun many times hath been nimbler than both;
Yet you are deceived by many a slut,

But the hangman is only the Cut-purse's cut.

It makes you to vex

When he bridles your necks,

And then, at the last, what becomes of your tricks?
But when you should pray, you begin for to curse
The hand that first showed you to slash at a purse.

Youth, youth, &c.

But now to my hearers this counsel I give,
And pray, friends, remember it as long as you live
Bring out no more cash in purse, pocket, or wallet,
Than one single penny to pay for this ballad;
For Cut-purse doth shroud

Himself in a cloud,

There's many a purse hath been lost in a crowd,
For he's the most rogue that doth cry up, and curses,
Who first cries, My masters, beware of your purses.'

Oh! youth, &c.

;

An inferior hand may be easily detected in these supplementary verses. It will be seen, also, that the writer changes the alternate rhymes to couplets.

Examples have been

Of some that were seen

In Westminster-hall, yea, the pleaders between ; Then why should the judges be free from this curse, More than my poor self for cutting the purse?

Youth, youth, &c.

At Worcester, 'tis known well, and even in the jail,
A knight of good worship did there show his face
Against the foul sinners in zeal for to rail,

And lost (ipso facto) his purse in the place.
Nay, once from the seat

Of judgment so great,

A judge there did lose a fair purse of velvate.
O Lord! for thy mercy, how wicked, or worse,
Are those that so venture their necks for a purse!
Youth, youth, &c.

At plays, and at sermons, and at the sessions,

"Tis daily their practice such booty to make; Yea, under the gallows, at executions,

They stick not the stare-abouts' purses to take.
Nay, one without grace,

At a better place,

At court, and in Christmas, before the king's face. Alack, then for pity! must I bear the curse, That only belongs to the cunning Cut-purse?

Youth, youth, &c.

But O, you vile nation of Cut-purses all,

Relent and repent, and amend and be sound, And know that you ought not by honest men's fall Advance your own fortunes, to die above ground; And though you go gay

In silks as you may,

It is not the high way to heaven, as they say. Repent then, repent you, for better, for worse, And kiss not the gallows for cutting a purse.

Youth, youth, &c.

THE NEW INN; OR, THE LIGHT HEART. 1629.

A VISION OF BEAUTY.

T was a beauty that I saw

IT

So pure, so perfect, as the frame
Of all the universe was lame,
To that one figure could I draw,
Or give least line of it a law!

A skein of silk without a knot!
A fair march made without a halt!
A curious form without a fault!

A printed book without a blot!
All beauty, and without a spot.

THE SAD SHEPHERD; OR, A TALE OF ROBIN HOOD.*

LOVE AND DEATH.

THOUGH I am young and cannot tell

Either what death or love is well,

Yet I have heard they both bear darts,
And both do aim at human hearts;
And then again, I have been told,
Love wounds with heat, as death with cold;
So that I fear they do but bring
Extremes to touch, and mean one thing.

As in a ruin we it call,

One thing to be blown up, or fall;
Or to our end, like way may have,
By a flash of lightning, or a wave:
So love's inflamèd shaft or brand,
May kill as soon as death's cold hand;
Except love's fires the virtue have

To fright the frost out of the grave.

*This piece, a dramatic pastoral, in the manner of the Faithful Shepherdess of Fletcher, was left unfinished by Jonson at his death. Only two acts, and a fragment of a third, are all that have come down to us. They abound in passages of exquisite beauty, and display his mastery over a species of poetry in which he is least appreciated.

THE FOREST.*

TO CELIA.

DRINK to me only with thine eyes,

And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

And I'll not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee,
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be;

But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me;

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.

FRANCIS BEAUMONT AND JOHN FLETCHER.

1584-1616.

1579-1625.

[VARIETY, grace, and sweetness are the predominant characteristics of Beaumont and Fletcher's songs. They occupy a middle region between Shakespeare and Jonson. The individual hand of either poet cannot be traced with certainty in any of these pieces. We learn from the traditions which have reached us, that they lived together on the Bank-side, and not only pursued their studies in close companionship, but carried their community of habits so far that they had only one bench between them, and used the same clothes and cloaks in common. Beaumont has got the credit (though the younger man) of possessing the restraining judgment, and Fletcher the overflowing fancy and exuberant wit. There

* A collection of Jonson's smaller poems.