and these wet eyes! I'll get thy husband discharged, I warrant thee, sweet Jane; go to!

Hodge. Master, here be the captains.

Eyre. Peace, Hodge; hush, ye knave, hush! Firk. Here be the cavaliers and the colonels, master.

Eyre. Peace, Firk; peace, my fine Firk! Stand by with your pishery-pashery, away! I am a man of the best presence; I'll speak to them, an they were Popes.-Gentlemen, captains, colonels, commanders! Brave men, brave leaders, may it please you to give me audience. I am Simon Eyre, the mad shoemaker of Tower Street; this wench with the mealy mouth that will never tire, is my wife, I can tell you; here's Hodge, my man and my foreman; here's Firk, my fine firking journeyman, and this is blubbered Jane. All we come to be suitors for this honest Ralph. Keep him at home, and as I am a true shoemaker and a gentleman of the gentle craft, buy spurs yourselves, and I'll find ye boots these seven years.

Marg. Seven years, husband?

Eyre. Peace, midriff, peace! I know what I do, Peace!

Firk. Truly, master cormorant, you shall do God good service to let Ralph and his wife stay together. She's a young new-married woman; if you take her husband away from her, you undo her; she may beg in the daytime; for he's as good a workman as any is in our trade.*

Jane. O let him stay, else I shall be undone.

Firk. Ay, truly, she shall be laid at one side like a pair of old shoes else, and be occupied for no

use.

Lacy. Truly, my friends, it lies not in my power: The Londoners are pressed, paid, and set forth By the lord mayor; I cannot change a man.

Hodge. Why, then you were as good be a corporal as a colonel, if you cannot discharge one good fellow; and I tell you true, I think you do more than you

can answer, to press a man within a year and a day of his marriage.

Eyre. Well said, melancholy Hodge; gramercy, my fine foreman.

Marg. Truly, gentlemen, it were ill done for such as you to stand so stiffly against a poor young wife, considering her case, she is new-married, but let that pass: I pray, deal not roughly with her; her husband is a young man, and but newly entered, but let that

pass.

Eyre. Away with your pishery-pashery, your pols and your edipols! Peace, midriff; silence, Cicely Trinket! Let your head speak.

*

Firk. Yea, and the theart too, master.

Eyre. Too soon, my fine Firk, too soon! Peace, scoundrels! See you this man? Captains, you will not release him? Well, let him go; he's a proper shot; let him vanish! Peace, Jane, dry up thy tears, they'll make his powder dankish. Take him, brave men; Hector of Troy was an hackney to him, Hercules and Termagant' scoundrels, Prince Arthur's Round-table-by the Lord of Ludgate-ne'er fed such a tall, such a dapper swordsman; by the life of Pharaoh, a brave, resolute swordsman! Peace, Jane! I say no more, mad knaves!

Firk. See, see, Hodge, how my master raves in commendation of Ralph!

Hodge. Ralph, th'art a gull, by this hand, an thou goest not.

Askew. I am glad, good Master Eyre, it is my hap To meet so resolute a soldier.

Trust me, for your report and love to him,

A common slight regard shall not respect him.
Lacy. Is thy name Ralph ?

Yes, sir.

Give me thy hand;

Thou shalt not want, as I am a gentleman.
Woman, be patient; God, no doubt, will send

An imaginary Saracen god.

Thy husband safe again; but he must go,
His country's quarrels says it shall be so.

Hodge. Th'art a gull, by my stirrup, if thou dost not go. *Strike thine enemies, Ralph.

[Enter DODGER.

Dodger. My lord, your uncle on the Tower Hill
Stays with the lord mayor and the aldermen,
And doth request you with all speed you may,
To hasten thither.

Lacy. Dodger, run you before, tell them we

come.

This Dodger is mine uncle's parasite,

[Exit DODGER.

The arrant'st varlet that e'er breathed on earth;
He sets more discord in a noble house

By one day's broaching of his pickthank tales,
Than can be salved again in twenty years,
And he, I fear, shall go with us to France,
To pry into our actions.

Askew.

Therefore, Coz, It shall behove you to be circumspect.

Lacy. Fear not, good cousin.] Ralph, hie to your colours.

Ralph. I must, because there's no remedy;
But, gentle master and my loving dame,
As you have always been a friend to me,
So in mine absence think upon my wife.
Jane. Alas, my Ralph.

Marg. She cannot speak for weeping.

Eyre. Peace, you cracked groats, you mustard tokens,' disquiet not the brave soldier. Go thy ways, Ralph!

Jane. Ay, ay, you bid him go; what shall I do When he is gone?

Firk. Why, be not idle.*

Eyre. Let me see thy hand, Jane. This fine hand,

Little yellow spots on the body which denoted the infection of the plague.

this white hand, these pretty fingers must spin, must card, must work; work, you bombast-cotton-candlequeen; work for your living, twith a plague to you.Hold thee, Ralph, here's five sixpences for thee; fight for the honour of the gentle craft, for the gentlemen shoemakers, the courageous cordwainers, the flower of St. Martin's, the mad knaves of Bedlam, Fleet Street, Tower Street and Whitechapel; crack me the crowns of the French knaves; †a plague on them, crack them; fight, by the Lord of Ludgate; fight, my fine boy!

Firk. Here, Ralph, here's three twopences: two carry into France, the third shall wash our souls at parting, for sorrow is dry. For my sake, firk the Basa mon cues.

Hodge. Ralph, I am heavy at parting; but here's a shilling for thee. God send thee to cram thy slops' with French crowns, and thy enemies' +bodies with bullets.

Ralph. I thank you, master, and I thank you all. Now, gentle wife, my loving lovely Jane,

Rich men, at parting, give their wives rich gifts,
Jewels and rings, to grace their lily hands.

Thou know'st our trade makes rings for women's

heels:

Here take this pair of shoes, cut out by Hodge,
Stitched by my fellow Firk, seamed by myself,
Made up and pinked with letters for thy name.
Wear them, my dear Jane, for thy husband's sake;
And every morning, when thou pull'st them on,
Remember me, and pray for my return.

Make much of them; for I have made them so,
That I can know them from a thousand mo.

Drum sounds. Enter the LORD MAYOR, the EARL of LINCOLN, LACY, ASKEW, DODGER, and Soldiers. They pass over the stage; RALPH falls in amongst them; FIRK and the rest cry "Farewell," etc., and so exeunt.

1 Breeches-pockets.

ACT II.

SCENE I.-A Garden at Old Ford.

Enter ROSE, alone, making a garland.

Rose. Here sit thou down upon this flow'ry bank,
And make a garland for thy Lacy's head.
These pinks, these roses, and these violets,
These blushing gilliflowers, these marigolds,
The fair embroidery of his coronet,

Carry not half such beauty in their cheeks,
As the sweet countenance of my Lacy doth.
O my most unkind father! O my stars,
Why lowered you so at my nativity,

To make me love, yet live robbed of my love?
Here as a thief am I imprisoned

For my dear Lacy's sake within those walls,
Which by my father's cost were builded up
For better purposes; here must I languish
For him that doth as much lament, I know,
Mine absence, as for him I pine in woe.

Enter SYBIL.

[Sybil. Good morrow, young mistress. I am sure you make that garland for me; against I shall be Lady of the Harvest.

Rose. Sybil, what news at London?

Sybil. None but good; my lord mayor, your father, and Master Philpot, your uncle, and Master Scot, your cousin, and Mistress Fry by Doctors' Commons, do all, by my troth, send you most hearty commendations.

Rose. Did Lacy send kind greetings to his love?