Phil. And, as a friend, you have it.
Anth. I, life and love.

Phil. And, as your friend, I vow

To love

you whilst I live, as I do now. Frank. I ask but all, for I deserve no more.

Phil. And thou shalt have thy wish. My love, my self.

Frank, By heav'n, I ask no more.

Take all my store,

Brothers, have done! and, dad, to end all strife,
Come, take her hand, and give her for my wife.

Flow. With all my heart, and 'tis a good conceit.
Bow. Gentlemen, patience is your fairest play.

Ferd. Impatience pulls me hence; for this disdain, I am resolv'd never to love again.

[Exit.

Anth. Stay, brother Ferdinand; I'll follow thee.

Farewell, all love! 'tis full of treachery.

[Exit.

Bow. By heavens, Frank, I do commend thy wit;

Come, Moll, shall thou and I ask blessing too, for company? Moll. You and I, sir? alas! we are not playfellows, though we be turtles. I am provided.

Bow. Provided! why, am not I thy Menelaus!

Moll. Ay, sir, but this is my Paris. I am resolv'd;

And what I do is by authority.

Bow. Is it even so? is Helen stol'n by Paris?

Then thus, in arms, will Menelaus mourn,

Till Troy be sack'd, and Helena return.

Enter Master WOOD and Officers.

[Exit.

Wood. This is the man. Officers, attach him upon felony ! Off. Master Flower, I arrest you upon felony, and charge you to obey.

Flow. Arrest me upon felony ! at whose suit?

Wood. Sir, at mine. Where had you that diamond on your finger? It was stolen from me, and many other jewels, to the value of an hundred pound.

J1625

Flow. This is no good conceit. Hath Captain Racket Bandied old Flower to such an exigent?

I hope my credit somewhat will assist me.

Well, whither must I go?

Wood. Straight to the bench, where now the Judges are, To give you speedy trial.

Flow. Words here are little worth. Wife, friends, and all,

Go with me to my trial. You shall see

A good conceit now brought to infamy.

[Exeunt omnes.

FINIS.

1625-1637

NOTES.

Page 3, line 7, Mall Berry.] In the days when this play was written, all words of one syllable, written with an a, had the broad pronunciation which we now give to those spelt with an o; a custom still retained in Scotland and the North of England. We of the South also preserve this pronunciation in this abbreviation of the name Mary; but, if I had not, in the following play, altered the orthography to Moll, the modern reader would have scarcely recognized the word.

Page 5, line 8, quothernicke.] From cothurnus, the buskin.

Page 5, line 10, pamping.] I have not met with this word elsewhere. Quære, pimping?

Page 7, line 23. Who recks the tree.] Both the editions of 1607 and 1637 read "who wreakes the tree." See Dyce's Remarks on Collier's

and Knight's Shakespeares, p. 163.

Page 13, line 7. Away, you want wit.] The edition 1607 has a hyphen between the two last words.

Page 19, line 1. I'll have one venny with her tongue.] "A sweet Love's touch, a quick venny of wit; snip, snap, quick and home." Labour's Lost, act v., scene 1. See Douce's Illustrations of Shakespeare, vol. 1., p. 233.

Page 19, line 20.

Yonder wad of groans.]

A wad is a bundle.

Page 22, line 9. copies read "the sign of the Maidenhead in, &c."

The sign of the Maidenhead Inn.] Both the old

Page 22, line 10. What's her hair? faith, to Bandora wires, there's not the like simile.] A bandora was a guitar (Hawkins's History of

Music, iii., 345); and, however strange this similitude may now seem,

ladies' hairs were often called wires by the poets of these times.

"Her hair not truss'd, but scatter'd on her brow,

Surpassing Hybla's honey for the view,

Or soften'd golden wires."

Lodge, in England's Parnassus.

"Come, sweet Muses, leave your singinge,

Let your hands your hands be wringinge,
Tear your haires of golden wyers,

Sith

you lost your whole desires."

Halliwell's Miscel. temp., Jac. i.. p. 41.

"I do not love thee for that fair
Rich fan of thy most curious hair,

Tho' the wires thereof be drawn

Finer than the threads of lawn."
Carew.

The transition was easy from the universal poetical epithet golden hairs to golden wires; but in two contemporary plays, we find that not only metal wires were used in dressing ladies' hair, but that the ladies themselves were called City-wires.—See Gifford's Jonson, iii., 342, and Dyce's Beaumont and Fletcher, i., 233. In both these places, city-wires would make better sense; and I am convinced that in Mr. Dyce's quotation, wires is a mere error of the press for wives. I should have thought the same in Mr. Gifford's passage too, but that there, the word ought to rhyme to Squires.

Page 22, line 27. Shall I defy hatbands, &c.] Frank has given us this description of a lover's habits before. It consists in a general indifference to the ligatures of dress, and an exchange of the foppery of neckruffs for the plainness of falling bands, such as divines, lawyers, and charity-boys now wear. Ruffian is a poor pun. There is a good deal of humour in " Shoe-strings-so-and-so!" As if Frank had exhausted

the eloquence of his passion.

"The hatband" (says Mr. Dilke1) "was a very distinguishing feature of the nobility and gentry of those times; on the adornment of which comparatively large sums were expended."

1 Old Eng. Plays, vol. ii., p. 129.