A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) - Various
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A SELECT COLLECTION OF OLD ENGLISH PLAYS, VOL. VIII
Fourth Edition
Originally published by Robert Dodsley in the Year 1744.
Now first chronologically arranged, revised and enlarged with the Notes
of all the Commentators, and new Notes
By
W. CAREW HAZLITT
1874-1876.
CONTENTS:
Summer's Last Will and Testament
The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington
The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington
Contention between Liberality and Prodigality
Grim the Collier of Croydon.
SUMMER'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.
EDITION.
_A pleasant Comedie, called Summer's last will and Testament. Written
by Thomas Nash. Imprinted at London by Simon Stafford, for Water Burre_.
1600. 4to.
[COLLIER'S PREFACE.]
[Thomas Nash, son of William Nash, minister, and Margaret his wife, was
baptized at Lowestoft, in Suffolk, in November 1567.[1] He was admitted
a scholar at St John's College, Cambridge, on the Lady Margaret's
foundation, in 1584, and proceeded B.A. in 1585:] the following is a
copy of the Register:--
"Tho. Nashe Coll. Joh. Cantab. A.B. ib. 1585." The place, though not
the time, of his birth[2] we have under his own authority, for in his
"Lenten Stuff," printed in 1599, he informs us that he was born at
Lowestoft; and he leads us to conclude that his family was of some note,
by adding that his "father sprang from the Nashes of Herefordshire."[3]
It does not appear that Nash ever proceeded Master of Arts at Cambridge,
and most of his biographers agree that he left his college about 1587.
It is evident, however, that he had got into disgrace, and probably was
expelled; for the author of "England to her three Daughters" in
"Polimanteia," 1595, speaking of Harvey and Nash, and the pending
quarrel between them, uses these terms: "Cambridge make thy two children
friends: _thou hast been unkind to the one to wean him before his time_,
and too fond upon the other to keep him so long without preferment: the
one is ancient and of much reading; the other is young, but full of
wit."[4] The cause of his disgrace is reported to have been the share he
took in a piece called "Terminus et non Terminus," not now extant; and
it is not denied that his partner in this offence was expelled. Most
likely, therefore, Nash suffered the same punishment.
If Nash be the author of "An Almond for a Parrot," of which there is
little doubt, although his name is not affixed to it, he travelled in
Italy;[5] and we find from another of his pieces that he had been in
Ireland. Perhaps he went abroad soon after he abandoned Cambridge, and
before he settled in London and became an author. His first appearance
in this character seems to have been in 1589, and we believe the
earliest date of any tract attributed to him relating to Martin
Marprelate is also 1589.[6] He was the first, as has been frequently
remarked, to attack this enemy of the Church with the keen missiles of
wit and satire, throwing aside the lumbering and unserviceable weapons
of scholastic controversy. Having set the example in this respect, he
had many followers and imitators, and among them John Lily, the dramatic
poet, the author of "Pap with a Hatchet."
In London Nash became acquainted with Robert Greene, and their
friendship drew him into a long literary contest with Gabriel Harvey, to
which Nash owes much of his reputation. It arose out of the posthumous
attack of Harvey upon Robert Greene, of which sufficient mention has
been made elsewhere. Nash replied on behalf of his dead companion, and
reiterated the charge which had given the original offence to Harvey,
viz., that his brother was the son of a ropemaker.[7] One piece was
humorously dedicated to Richard Litchfield, a barber of Cambridge, and
Harvey answered it under the assumed character of the same barber, in a
tract called "The Trimmino of Thomas Nash,"[8] which also contained a
woodcut of a man in fetters. This representation referred to the
imprisonment of Nash for an offence he gave by writing a play (not now
extant) called "The Isle of Dogs," and to this event Francis Meres
alludes in his "Palladia Tamia," 1598, in these terms: "As Actaeon was
worried of his own hounds, so is Tom Nash of his 'Isle of Dogs.' Dogs
were the death of Euripides; but be not disconsolate, gallant young
Juvenal; Linus, the son of Apollo, died the same death. Yet God forbid,
that so brave a wit should so basely perish!--Thine are but paper dogs;
neither is thy banishment like Ovid's eternally to converse with the
barbarous _Getes_. Therefore comfort thyself, sweet Tom, with Cicero's
glorious return to Rome, and with the council Aeneas gives to his
sea-beaten soldiers." Lib. I. Aeneid.
"Pluck up thine heart, and drive from thence both fear and care away:
To think on this may pleasure be, perhaps, another day."
--_Durato, et temet rebus servato secundis_. (fol. 286.)
This was in part verified in the next year, for when Nash published his
"Lenten Stuff," he referred with apparent satisfaction to his past
troubles in consequence of his "Isle of Dogs."[9]
So much has been said, especially by Mr D'Israeli in his "Quarrels of
Authors," on the subject of this dispute between Nash and Harvey, that
it is unnecessary to add anything, excepting that it was carried to such
a length, and the pamphlets contained so much scurrility, that it was
ordered from authority in 1599 that all the tracts on both sides should
be seized and suppressed.[10]
As with Greene, so with Nash, an opinion on his moral conduct and
general deportment has been too readily formed from the assertions of
his opponents; and because Gabriel Harvey, to answer a particular
purpose, states, "You may be in one prison to-day and in another
to-morrow," it has been taken for granted, that "after his arrival in
London, he was often confined in different jails." No doubt, he and his
companions Greene, Marlowe, and Peele, led very disorderly lives, and it
is singular that all four died prematurely, the oldest of them probably
not being forty years of age. It is certain that Nash was not living at
the time when the "Return from Parnassus" was produced, which, though
not printed until 1606, was written before the end of the reign of
Elizabeth: his ashes are there spoken of as at rest, but the mention of
him as dead, nearest to the probable date of that event, is to be found
in [Fitzgeoffrey's "Affaniae," 1601, where an epitaph upon him is
printed. His name also occurs in] an anonymous poem, under the title of
"The Ant and the Nightingale, or Father Hubbard's Tales," 1604, where
the following stanza is met with--
"Or if in bitterness thou rail like Nash:
Forgive me, honest soul, that term thy phrase
_Railing_; for in thy works thou wert not rash,
Nor didst affect in youth thy private praise.
Thou hadst a strife with that Tergemini;[11]
Thou hurt'dst them not till they had injured thee."[12]
The author of a MS. epitaph, in "Bibl. Sloan," Pl. XXI. A. was not so
squeamish in the language he employed--
"Here lies Tom Nash, that notable _railer_,
That in his life ne'er paid shoemaker nor tailor."
The following from Thomas Freeman's Epigrams, 1614, is not out of its
place--
OF THOMAS NASH.
"Nash, had Lycambes on earth living been
The time thou wast, his death had been all one;
Had he but mov'd thy tartest Muse to spleen
Unto the fork he had as surely gone:
For why? there lived not that man, I think,
Us'd better or more bitter gall in ink."
It is impossible in the present day to attempt anything like a correct
list of the productions of Nash, many of which were unquestionably
printed without his name:[13] the titles of and quotations from a great
number may be found in the various bibliographical miscellanies, easily
accessible. When he began to write cannot be ascertained, but it was
most likely soon after his return from the Continent, and the dispute
between John Penry and the Bishops seems then to have engaged his
pen.[14] There is one considerable pamphlet by him, called "Christ's
Tears over Jerusalem," printed in 1593, which, like some of the tracts
by Greene, is of a repentant and religious character; and it has been
said that, though published with his name, it was not in fact his
production. There is no sufficient ground for this supposition, and Nash
never subsequently disowned the performance: the address "To the Reader"
contains an apology to Gabriel Harvey for the attack upon him, in terms
that seem to vouch for their own sincerity. "Nothing (says Nash) is
there now so much in my vows as to be at peace with all men, and make
submissive amends where I most displeased; not basely fear-blasted, or
constraintively overruled, but purely pacificatory: suppliant for
reconciliation and pardon do I sue to the principallest of them 'gainst
whom I professed utter enmity; even of Master Doctor Harvey I heartily
desire the like, whose fame and reputation (through some precedent
injurious provocations and fervent excitements of young heads) I rashly
assailed: yet now better advised, and of his perfections more
confirmedly persuaded, unfeignedly I entreat of the whole world from my
pen his worth may receive no impeachment. All acknowledgments of
abundant scholarship, courteous, well-governed behaviour, and ripe,
experienced judgment do I attribute to him."
We have already seen with what malignity Harvey trampled upon the corpse
of Greene, and he received this apology of Nash in a corresponding
spirit; for instead of accepting it, in his "New Letter of Notable
Contents," 1593, he rejects it with scorn: "Riotous vanity (he replies)
was wont to root so deeply that it could hardly be unrooted; and where
reckless impudency taketh possession, it useth not very hastily to be
dispossessed. What say you to a spring of rankest villainy in February,
and a harvest of ripest divinity in May? But what should we hereafter
talk any more of paradoxes or impossibilities, when he that penned the
most desperate and abominable pamphlet of 'Strange News,' and disgorged
his stomach of as poisonous rancour as ever was vomited in print, within
few months is won, or charmed, or enchanted, (or what metamorphosis
should I term it?) to astonish carnal minds with spiritual
meditations," &c. Such a reception of well-intended and
eloquently-written amends was enough to make Nash repent even his
repentance, as far as Gabriel Harvey was concerned.[15]
Of the popularity of Nash as a writer some notion may be formed from a
fact he himself mentions in his "Have with you to Saffron Walden," that
between 1592, when his "Pierce Penniless, his Supplication to the Devil"
was first printed, and 1596 it "passed through the pikes of at least six
impressions." How long his reputation as a satirist survived him may be
judged from the fact that in 1640 Taylor the Water Poet published a
tract, which had for its second title "Tom Nash, his Ghost (the old
Martin queller), newly rouz'd:" and in _Mercurius Anti-pragmaticus_,
from Oct. 12 to Oct. 19, 1647, is the following passage: "Perhaps you
will be angry now, and when you steal forth disguised, in your next
intelligence thunder forth threatenings against me, and be as satirical
in your language as ever was your predecessor Nash, who compiled a
learned treatise in the praise of a red herring."
Only two plays in which Nash had any concern have come down to us: his
"Isle of Dogs," before noticed, was probably never printed, or at all
events it is not now known to exist. He wrote alone--
(1.) A pleasant Comedy called "Summer's Last Will and Testament."
1600. 4to.
In conjunction with Marlowe he produced--
(2.) "The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage," played by the children
of her Majesty's chapel. 1594. 4to.
Phillips, in his "Theatrum Poetarum," also assigned to Nash, "See me,
and see me not," a comedy, which may be a different play, and not, as
has been generally supposed, "Hans Beer Pot;" because, the name of the
author, Dawbridgecourt Belchier, being subscribed to the dedication,
such a mistake could not easily be made.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
WILL SUMMER.
VER.
SUMMER.
AUTUMN.
WINTER.
CHRISTMAS, | _Sons to WINTER_.
BACKWINTEB. |
SOL.
SOLSTITIUM.
VERTUMNUS.
ORION.
BACCHUS.
HARVEST.
SATIRES.
NYMPHS.
_Three_ CLOWNS.
_Three_ MAIDS.
HUNTERS.
REAPERS.
MORRIS DANCERS.
BOY _to speak the Epilogue_.
SUMMER'S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.[16]
_Enter_ WILL SUMMER,[17] _in his fool's coat
but half on, coming out_.
_Noctem peccatis et fraudibus objice nubem_.[18] There is no such fine
time to play the knave in as the night. I am a goose or a ghost, at
least; for what with turmoil of getting my fool's apparel, and care of
being perfect, I am sure I have not yet supp'd to-night. Will Summer's
ghost I should be, come to present you with "Summer's Last Will and
Testament." Be it so; if my cousin Ned will lend me his chain and his
fiddle. Other stately-pac'd Prologues use to attire themselves within: I
that have a toy in my head more than ordinary, and use to go without
money, without garters, without girdle, without hat-band, without points
to my hose, without a knife to my dinner, and make so much use of this
word without in everything, will here dress me without. Dick
Huntley[19] cries, Begin, begin: and all the whole house, For shame,
come away; when I had my things but now brought me out of the laundry.
God forgive me, I did not see my Lord before! I'll set a good face on
it, as though what I had talk'd idly all this while were my part. So it
is, _boni viri_, that one fool presents another; and I, a fool by nature
and by art, do speak to you in the person of the idiot of our
play-maker. He, like a fop and an ass, must be making himself a public
laughingstock, and have no thank for his labour; where other Magisterii,
whose invention is far more exquisite, are content to sit still and do
nothing. I'll show you what a scurvy Prologue he had made me, in an old
vein of similitudes: if you be good fellows, give it the hearing, that
you may judge of him thereafter.
THE PROLOGUE.
At a solemn feast of the Triumviri in Rome, it was seen and observed
that the birds ceased to sing, and sat solitary on the housetops, by
reason of the sight of a painted serpent set openly to view. So fares it
with us novices, that here betray our imperfections: we, afraid to look
on the imaginary serpent of envy, painted in men's affections, have
ceased to tune any music of mirth to your ears this twelvemonth,
thinking that, as it is the nature of the serpent to hiss, so childhood
and ignorance would play the gosling, contemning and condemning what
they understood not. Their censures we weigh not, whose senses are not
yet unswaddled. The little minutes will be continually striking, though
no man regard them: whelps will bark before they can see, and strive to
bite before they have teeth. Politianus speaketh of a beast who, while
he is cut on the table, drinketh and represents the motions and voices
of a living creature. Such like foolish beasts are we who, whilst we are
cut, mocked, and flouted at, in every man's common talk, will
notwithstanding proceed to shame ourselves to make sport. No man
pleaseth all: we seek to please one. Didymus wrote four thousand books,
or (as some say) six-thousand, on the art of grammar. Our author hopes
it may be as lawful for him to write a thousand lines of as light a
subject. Socrates (whom the oracle pronounced the wisest man of Greece)
sometimes danced: Scipio and Laslius, by the sea-side, played at
peeble-stone: _Semel insanivimus omnes_. Every man cannot with
Archimedes make a heaven of brass, or dig gold out of the iron mines of
the law. Such odd trifles as mathematicians' experiments be artificial
flies to hang in the air by themselves, dancing balls, an egg-shell that
shall climb up to the top of a spear, fiery-breathing gores, _poeta
noster_ professeth not to make. _Placeat sibi quinque licebit_. What's a
fool but his bauble? Deep-reaching wits, here is no deep stream for you
to angle in. Moralisers, you that wrest a never-meant meaning out of
everything, applying all things to the present time, keep your attention
for the common stage; for here are no quips in characters for you to
read. Vain glosers, gather what you will; spite, spell backward what
thou canst. As the Parthians fight flying away, so will we prate and
talk, but stand to nothing that we say.
How say you, my masters? do you not laugh at him for a coxcomb? Why, he
hath made a prologue longer than his play: nay, 'tis no play neither,
but a show. I'll be sworn the jig of Rowland's godson is a giant in
comparison of it. What can be made of Summer's last will and testament!
Such another thing as Gyllian of Brentford's[20] will, where she
bequeathed a score of farts amongst her friends. Forsooth, because the
plague reigns in most places in this latter end of summer,[21] Summer
must come in sick; he must call his officers to account, yield his
throne to Autumn, make Winter his executor, with tittle-tattle Tom-boy.
God give you good night in Watling Street; I care not what you say now,
for I play no more than you hear; and some of that you heard too (by
your leave) was _extempore_. He were as good have let me had the best
part, for I'll be revenged on him to the uttermost, in this person of
Will Summer, which I have put on to play the prologue, and mean not to
put it off till the play be done. I'll sit as a chorus, and flout the
actors and him at the end of every scene. I know they will not interrupt
me, for fear of marring of all; but look to your cues, my masters, for I
intend to play the knave in cue, and put you besides all your parts, if
you take not the better heed. Actors, you rogues, come away; clear your
throats, blow your noses, and wipe your mouths ere you enter, that you
may take no occasion to spit or to cough, when you are _non plus_. And
this I bar, over and besides, that none of you stroke your beards to
make action, play with your cod-piece points, or stand fumbling on your
buttons, when you know not how to bestow your fingers. Serve God, and
act cleanly. A fit of mirth and an old song first, if you will.
_Enter_ SUMMER, _leaning on_ AUTUMN'S _and_ WINTER'S
_shoulders, and attended on with a train of Satyrs and
Wood-nymphs, singing_.[22]
_Fair Summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore,
So fair a summer look for never more:
All good things vanish less than in a day,
Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay.
Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year,
The earth is hell when thou, leav'st to appear.
What! shall those flowers that deck'd thy garland erst,
Upon thy grave be wastefully dispersed?
O trees, consume your sap in sorrow's source,
Streams turn to tears your tributary course.
Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year,
The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear.
[The Satyrs and Wood-nymphs go out singing, and leave_
SUMMER _and_ WINTER _and_ AUTUMN _on the stage_.
WILL SUM. A couple of pretty boys, if they would wash their faces, and
were well breech'd[23] in an hour or two. The rest of the green men
have reasonable voices, good to sing catches or the great _Jowben_ by
the fire's side in a winter's evening. But let us hear what Summer can
say for himself, why he should not be hiss'd at.
SUM. What pleasure always lasts? no joy endures:
Summer I am; I am not what I was;
Harvest and age have whiten'd my green head;
On Autumn now and Winter I must lean.
Needs must he fall, whom none but foes uphold,
Thus must the happiest man have his black day.
_Omnibus una manet nox, et calcanda semel via lethi_.[24]
This month have I lain languishing a-bed,
Looking each hour to yield my life and throne;
And died I had indeed unto the earth,
But that Eliza, England's beauteous Queen,
On whom all seasons prosperously attend,
Forbad the execution of my fate,
Until her joyful progress was expir'd.[25]
For her doth Summer live, and linger here,
And wisheth long to live to her content:
But wishes are not had, when they wish well:
I must depart, my death-day is set down;
To these two must I leave my wheaten crown.
So unto unthrifts rich men leave their lands,
Who in an hour consume long labour's gains.
True is it that divinest Sidney sung,
_0, he is marr'd, that is for others made_.
Come near, my friends, for I am near my end.
In presence of this honourable train,
Who love me, for I patronise their sports,
Mean I to make my final testament:
But first I'll call my officers to 'count,
And of the wealth I gave them to dispose,
Know what is left I may know what to give
Vertumnus, then, that turn'st the year about,
Summon them one by one to answer me.
First, Ver, the Spring, unto whose custody
I have committed more than to the rest;
The choice of all my fragrant meads and flowers,
And what delights soe'er nature affords.
VER. I will, my lord. Ver, lusty Ver, by the name of lusty Ver, come
into the court! lose a mark in issues.
_Enter_ VER, _with his train, overlaid with suits of
green moss, representing short grass, singing.
The Song.
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Cuckow, jug, jug, pu--we, to-wit, to-whoo.
The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And hear we aye birds tune this merry lay,
Cuckow, jug, jug, pu--we, to-wit, to-whoo.
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit;
In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
Cuckow, jug, jug, pu--we, to-wit, to-whoo.
Spring, the sweet spring_.
WILL SUM. By my troth, they have voices as clear as crystal: this is
a pratty thing, if it be for nothing but to go a-begging with.
SUM. Believe me, Ver, but thou art pleasant bent;
This humour should import a harmless mind.
Know'st thou the reason why I sent for thee?
VER. No, faith, nor care not whether I do or no.
If you will dance a galliard, so it is: if not--
_Falangtado, Falangtado,
To wear the black and yellow,
Falantado, Falantado,
My mates are gone, I'll follow_.[26]
SUM. Nay, stay awhile, we must confer and talk.
Ver, call to mind I am thy sovereign lord,
And what thou hast, of me thou hast and hold'st.
Unto no other end I sent for thee,
But to demand a reckoning at thy hands,
How well or ill thou hast employ'd my wealth.
VER. If that be all, we will not disagree:
A clean trencher and a napkin you shall have presently.
WILL SUM. The truth is, this fellow hath been a tapster in his days.
VER _goes in, and fetcheth out the hobby-horse[27] and
the morris-dance, who dance about_.
SUM. How now? is this the reckoning we shall have?
WIN. My lord, he doth abuse you; brook it not.
AUT. _Summa totalis_, I fear, will prove him but a fool.
VER. About, about! lively, put your horse to it, rein him harder; jerk
him with your wand: sit fast, sit fast, man! fool, hold up your ladle
there.
WILL SUM. O brave Hall![28] O, well-said, butcher. Now for the credit
of Worcestershire. The finest set of morris-dancers that is between
this and Streatham. Marry, methinks there is one of them danceth like
a clothier's horse, with a woolpack on his back. You, friend with the
hobby-horse, go not too fast, for fear of wearing out my lord's
tile-stones with your hobnails.
VER. So, so, so; trot the ring twice over, and away. May it please my
lord, this is the grand capital sum; but there are certain parcels
behind, as you shall see.
SUM. Nay, nay, no more; for this is all too much.
VER. Content yourself; we'll have variety.
_Here enter three_ CLOWNS _and three_ MAIDS,
_singing this song, dancing:--
Trip and go, heave and hoe,
Up and down, to and fro;
From the town to the grove,
Two and two let us rove.
A maying, a playing:
Love hath no gainsaying;
So merrily trip and go_.
WILL SUM. Beshrew my heart, of a number of ill legs I never saw worse
dancers. How bless'd are you, that the wenches of the parish do not
see you!
SUM. Presumptuous Ver, uncivil-nurtur'd boy? Think'st I will be derided
thus of thee? Is this th'account and reckoning that thou mak'st?
VER. Troth, my lord, to tell you plain, I can give you no other account;
_nam quae habui perdidi_; what I had, I spent on good fellows; in these
sports you have seen, which are proper to the spring, and others of like
sort (as giving wenches green gowns,[29] making garlands for fencers,
and tricking up children gay), have I bestowed all my flowery treasure
and flower of my youth.
WILL SUM. A small matter. I know one spent in less than a year eight
and fifty pounds in mustard, and another that ran in debt, in the space
of four or five year, above fourteen thousand pound in lute-strings and
grey-paper.[30]
SUM. O monstrous unthrift! who e'er heard the like?
The sea's vast throat, in so short tract of time,
Devoureth nor consumeth half so much.
How well might'st thou have liv'd within thy bounds.