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I go of message from the queen to France;
I charge thee, waft me safely cross the channel.
Cap. Walter,

Whit. Come, Suffolk, I must waft thee to thy death.

* Geo. O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded *in handycrafts-men.

* Suff. Gelilus timor occupat artus ;'-'tis thee I* fear.

• Whit. Thou shalt have cause to fear, before I leave thee.

• What, are ye daunted now? now will ye stoop? I Gent. My gracious lord, entreat him, speak him fair.

'Suff. Suffolk's imperial tongue is stern and rough, • Us'd to command, untaught to plead for favour. Far be it, we should honour such as these

• With humble suit; no, rather let my head

Stoop to the block, than these knees bow to any,
Save to the God of heaven, and to my king;
And sooner dance upon a bloody pole,
Than stand uncover'd to the vulgar groom.
True nobility is exempt from fear :-
⚫ More can I bear, than you dare execute.2

3

Cap. Hale him away, and let him talk no more: Suff Come, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,' That this my death may never be forgot!• Great men oft die by vile bezonians:* A Roman sworder and banditto slave, 'Murder'd sweet Tully; Brutus' bastard hand Stabb'd Julius Cæsar; savage islanders, Pompey the Great: and Suffolk dies by pirates. [Exit SUFF. with WHIT. and others. Cap. And as for these whose ransom we have set, It is our pleasure, one of them depart:Therefore come you with us, and let him go.

[Exeunt all but the first Gentleman.

Re-enter WHITMORE, with SUFFOLK's Body. Whit. There let his head and lifeless body lie, Until the queen his mistress bury it. [Exit.

1 Gent. O barbarous and bloody spectacle! His body will I bear unto the king: If he revenge it not, yet will his friends: 'So will the queen, that living held him dear.

'John. The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.

Geo. Nay more, the king's council are no good workmen.

*John. True; And yet it is said,-Labour in thy vocation; which is as much to say, as,-let the *magistrates be labouring men; and therefore * should we be magistrates.

*

*Geo. Thou hast hit it: for there's no better sign of a brave mind, than a hard hand.

*John. I see them! I see them! There's Best's son, the tanner of Wingham ;

*Geo. He shall have the skins of our enemies, * to make dog's leather of.

John. And Dick the butcher,

*Geo. Then is sin struck down like an ox, and *iniquity's throat cut like a calf.

John. And Smith the weaver:

*Geo. Argo, their thread of life is spun.

* John. Come, come, let's fall in with them. Dram. Enter CADE, DICK the Butcher, SMITH the Weaver, and others in great number. Cade. We John Cade, so termed of our sup 'posed father,

Dick. Or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings. [Aside,

1

Cade. for our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with the spirit of putting down kings and princes.-Command silence.

Dick. Silence!

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[Aside.

Cade. My wife descended of the Lacies,Dick. She was, indeed, a pedler's daughter, and sold many laces. [Aside. Smith. But, now of late, not able to travel with [Exit, with the Body.her furred pack, she washes bucks here at home.

SCENE II. Blackheath. Enter GEORGE BEVIS and JOHN HOLLAND.

Gen. Come, and get thee a sword, though made of a lath; they have been up these two days. John. They have the more need to sleep now then.

Geo. I tell thee, Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the commonwealth, and turn it, and set " a new nap upon it.

John. So he had need, for 'tis threadbare. Well, I say, it was never merry world in England, since gentlemen came up."

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Again in Othello :

Thou hast not half the power to do me harm,
As I have to be hurt."

3 According to the Letter in the Paston Collection, al. ready cited, the cutting off of Suffolk's head was very barbarously performed. One of the lewdest of the ship bade him lay down his head, and he should be fairly ferd [dealt] with, and dye on a sword; and took a rusty sword and smote off his head within half a dozen strokes.'

4 A bezonian is a mean low person.

5 Pompey was killed by Achillas and Septimius at the moment that the Egyptian fishing boat in which they G

[Aside.

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* Smith. 'A must needs; for beggary is valiant. {Aside Cade. I am able to endure much. Dick. No question of that; for I have seen him whipped three market days together. Aside.

were, reached the coast, his head being thrown into the sea, a circumstance sufficiently resembling Suffolk's death to bring it to the poet's memory; though his mention of it is not quite accurate. In the old play Pompey is not named.

6 They laid his body on the sands of Dover, and some say that his head was set on a pole by it.—Paston's Letters, vol. i. p. 41.

7 The same phrase was used by the duke of Suffolk to Wolsey and Campeggio in the reign of Henry VIII. With that stepped forth the duke of Suffolk from the king, and by his commandment spake these words, with a stout and hault countenance-" It was never merry England (quoth he) whilst we had cardinals among us."-Cavendish's Life of Wolsey, p. 167, ed. 1825.

8 Tom Nashe speaks of having weighed one of Gabriel Harvey's books against a cade of herrings, and ludicrously says, That the rebel Jack Cade was the first that devised to put red herrings in cades, and from him they have their name.'-Lenten Stuffe, 1599.Cade, however, is derived from cadus, Lai. a cask. We may add, from the accounts of the Celeress of the Abbey of Barking, in the Monasticon Anglicanum, ‘a barrel of herryng shold contain a thousand herryngs, and a cade of herryng six hundred, six score to the hundred. Cade, with more learning than should na. turally fall to his character, alludes to his name from cado, to fall.

9 Little places of prison, set commonly in the mar. ket place for harlots and vagabonds, we call cages. Baret.

Cade. I fear neicher sword nor fire. Smith. He need not fear the sword, for his coat is of proof.1 [Aside. Dick. But, methinks, he should stand in fear of Sre, being burnt i' the hand for stealing of sheep.

[Aside.

Cade. Be brave then; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be, in England, seven half-penny loaves sold for a penny; the threehooped pot shall have ten hoops; and I will make it felony, to drink small beer: all the realm shal be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfry go to grass. And, when I am king (as king I will be).

All. God save your majesty !

Cade. I thank you, good people :-there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my • score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

'Dick. The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

Cade. Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? Some say, the bee stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now; who's there?

Enter some, bringing in the Clerk of Chatham. Smith. The clerk of Chatham: he can write and read, and cast accompt.

Cade. O monstrous!

Smith. We took him setting of boys' copies.
Cade. Here's a villain!

Smith. H'as a book in his pocket, with red letters in't.

Cade. Nay, then he is a conjurer.

Dick. Nay, he can make obligations,' and write court-hand.

Cade. I am sorry for't: the man is a proper man, on mine honour; unless I find him guilty, he shall not die,-Come hither, sirrah, I must ⚫ examine thee: What is thy name?

Clerk. Emmanuel.

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'Mich. Where's our general?
'Cade. Here I am, thou particular fellow.

1 A quibble is most probably intended between two Benses of the word; one as being able to resist, the other as being well tried, that is, long worn.

2 These drinking vessels of our ancestors were of wood. Nash, in his Pierce Pennilesse, 1595, says, 'I believe hoopes in quart pots were invented to that end, that every man should take his hoope, and no more.'

3 To mend the world by banishing money is an old contrivance of those who did not consider that the quarrels and mischiefs which arise from money, as the signs or tickets of riches, must, if riches were to cease, arise from riches themselves, and could never be at an end till every man was contented with his own share of the goods of life.'-Johnson.

4 This speech was transposed by Shakspeare from a subsequent scene in the old play. 5 i. e. bonds.

6 That is on the top of Letters Missive and such like public acts. See Mabillon's Diplomata.

7 After this speech, in the old play, are the following words:

Is there any more of them that be knights?

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Mich. Fly, fly, fly! Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother are hard by, with the king's fo.. es. Cade. Stand, villain, stand, or I'll fell thee down: He shall be encountered with a man as good as himself: He is but a knight, is 'a? Mich. No.

Cade. To equal him, I will make myself a knight presently: Rise up Sir John Mortimer. Now have at him."

Enter SIR HUMPHREY STAFFORD, and WILLIAM his Brother, with Drum and Forces.

* Staf. Rebellious hinds, and filth and scum of Kent, *Mark'd for the gallows,-lay your weapons down, Home to your cottages, forsake this groom;* The king is merciful, if you revolt.

*W. Staf. But angry, wrathful, and inclin❜d to blood,

*If you go forward: therefore yield, or die.
Cade. As for these silken-coated slaves, I pass
not;

It is to you, good people, that I speak,
O'er whom, in time to come, I hope to reign;
For I am rightful heir unto the crown.
'Staf. Villain, thy father was a plasterer;
And thou thyself, a shearman, Art thou not?
Cade And Adam was a gardener.

'W. Staf. And what of that?

Cade. Marry, this :-Edmund Mortimer, earl of
March,

Married the duke of Clarence' daughter; Did he

not?

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The elder of them, being put to nurse,
Was by a beggar-woman stol'n away;
And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,
Became a bricklayer, when he came to age:
His son am I; deny it, if you can.

Dick. Nay, 'tis too true; therefore he shal pe king.

Smith. Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks are alive at this day to testify it; therefore, deny it not.

Staf. And will you credit this base drudge's words,

*That speaks he knows not what?

All. Ay, marry, will we; therefore get ye gone. W. Staf. Jack Cade, the duke of York hath taught you this.

Cade. He lies, for I invented it myself. [Aside.] Go to, sirrah. Tell the king from me, that-for his father's sake, Henry the Fifth, in whose time boys went to span counter for French crowns,-I am content he shall reign; but I'll be protector over him.

Dick. And, furthermore, we'll have the Lord 'Say's head, for selling the dukedom of Maine.

Cade. And good reason; for thereby is England 'maimed," and fain to go with a staff, but that my 'puissance holds it up. Fellow kings, I tell you, that that Lord Say hath gelded1" the common

Tom. Yea, his brother. Cade. Then kneel down, Dick Butcher; rise up Sir Dick Butcher. Sound up the drum.' 8 I care not, I pay them no regard.

Transform me to what shape you can, Ipuss not what it be.' Drayton's Quest of Cynthia. 9 The same play upon words is in Daniel's Civil Wars, 1595:

'Anjou and Maine, the main that foul appears.' 10 Steevens observes that Shakspeare has here transgressed a rule laid down by Tully, De Oratore: Nolo morte dici Africani castratam esse rempublicam.' The character of the speaker may countenance such indelicacy here, but in other places our author talks of gelding purses, patrimonies, and continents. I must again remark that in the former instances the phrase was only metaphorically used for diminishing or cur

SCENE IV.

• wealth, and made it an eunuch: and more than that, he can speak French, and therefore he is a traitor.

'Staf. O gross and miserable ignorance!

Cade. Nay, answer, if you can: The Frenchmen are our enemies: go to, then, I ask but this; Can he, that speaks with the tongue of an enemy, be a good counsellor, or no?

*All. No, no; and therefore we'll have his head. *W. Staf. Well, seeing gentle words will not prevail,

*Assail them with the army of the king.

Staf. Herald, away: and, throughout every town, 'Proclaim them traitors that are up with Cade; That those, which fly before the battle ends, May, even in their wives' and children's sight, Be hang'd up for example at their doors :And you, that be the king's friends, follow me. [Exeunt the Two STAFFORDS, and Forces. follow *Cade. And you, that love the commons,

me.

*Now show yourselves men, 'tis for liberty.
*We will not leave one lord, one gentleman:
* Spare none, but such as go in clouted shoon;1
*For they are thrifty honest men, and such

As would (but that they dare not) take our parts. *Dick. They are all in order, and march toward us. *Cade. But then are we in order, when we are *most out of order. Come, march forward.

rums.

[Exeunt. SCENE III. Another part of Blackheath. AlaThe two Parties enter and fight, and both the STAFFORDS are slain. Cade. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford? 'Dick. Here, sir.

Cade. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, ' and thou behavedst thyself as if thou hadst been ⚫ in thine own slaughter-house: therefore thus will I reward thee,-The Lent shall be as long again 'as it is; and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a 'hundred lacking one, a week.2

Dick. I desire no more.

Cade. And, to speak truth, thou deservest no *less. This monument of the victory will I bear;" and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse's *heels, till I do come to London, where we will *have the mayor's sword borne before us.

*Dick. If we mean to thrive and do good, break * open the gaols, and let out the prisoners.

Cade. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, [Exeunt. * let's march towards London.

SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Palace.
Enter KING HENRY, reading a Supplication; the
DUKE of BUCKINGHAM, and LORD SAY with
him; at a distance, QUEEN MARGARET, mourn-
ing over SUFFOLK's Head.

* Q. Mar. Oft have I heard-that grief softens
the mind,

* And makes it fearful and degenerate;
*Think therefore on revenge, and cease to weep.
* But who can cease to weep, and look on this?
tailing, and is not peculiar to Shakspeare, but a com.
mon form of expression in his time.

1 Shoes.

*Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast:
*But where's the body that I should embrace?

Buck. What answer makes your grace to the
rebels' supplication?

*K. Hen. I'll send some holy bishop1 to entreat:
For God forbid, so many simple souls
Should perish by the sword! And I myself,
Rather than bloody war shall cut them short,
Will parley with Jack Cade their general.-
But stay, I'll read it over once again.

*Q. Mar. Ah, barbarous villains! hath this lovely

face

Rul'd, like a wandering planet, over me; *And could it not enforce them to relent, *That were unworthy to behold the same? 'K. Hen. Lord Say, Jack Cade hath sworn to have thy head.

Say. Ay, but I hope, your highness shall have his.

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K. Hen. How now, madam? Still
Lamenting, and mourning for Suffolk's death?
I fear, my love, if that I had been dead,
Thou wouldest not have mourn'd so much for me.
Q. Mar. No, my love, I should not mourn, but
die for thee.

Enter a Messenger.

*K. Hen. How now! what news? why com'st thou in such haste?

'Mes. The rebels are in Southwark; Fly, my
lord!

'Jack Cade proclaims himself Lord Mortimer,
Descended from the duke of Clarence' house:
And calls your grace usurper, openly,
And vows to crown himself in Westminster.
His army is a ragged multitude

Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless;
Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother's death
Hath given them heart and courage to proceed:
All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,
'They call-false caterpillars, and intend their
death.

*K. Hen. O graceless men! they know not what they do.

Buck. My gracious lord, retire to Kenelworth,
Until a power be rais'd to put them down.
*Q. Mar. Ah! were the duke of Suffolk now alive,
*These Kentish rebels would be soon appeas'd.

K. Hen. Lord Say, the traitors hate thee,
Therefore away with us to Kenelworth.

Say. So might your grace's person be in dan-
ger;

The sight of me is odious in their eyes:
And therefore in this city will I stay,
And live alone as secret as I may.

Enter another Messenger.

* 2 Mess. Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge;
the citizens

*Fly and forsake their houses:
*The rascal people, thirsting after prey,
*Join with the traitor; and they jointly swear,
*To spoil the city, and your royal court.

*Buck. Then linger not, my lord; away, take

horse.

phrey's brigandine, set full of gilt nails, and so in glory returned again toward London. Sir Humphrey Staf ford was, in fact, killed at Sevenoaks, and is buried at Bromsgrove, in Staffordshire.

2 The last two words, a week, were added by Malone
from the old play. It is necessary to render the passage
intelligible. In the reign of Elizabeth, butchers were
4 Shakspeare has here fallen into another inconsist-
strictly enjoined not to sell flesh meat in Lent, not with
a religious view, but for the double purpose of dimin-ency, by sometimes following Holished instead of the
ishing the consumption of flesh meat during that period, old play. He afterwards forgets this holy bishop and
and so making it more plentiful during the rest of the in scene the eighth we find only Buckingham and Clif-
year, and of encouraging the fisheries and augmenting ford were sent, conformably to the old play, Holinshed
the number of seamen. Butchers, who had interest at mentions that the archbishop of Canterbury and the duke
court, frequently obtained a dispensation to kill a certain of Buckingham were sent.
number of beasts a week during Lent; of which indul-
gence, the wants of invalids who could not subsist with-
out animal food, was made the pretence. There are
several proclamations on the subject in the library of
the Society of Antiquaries.

3 Here Cade must be supposed to take off Stafford's armour. So Holinshed-Jack Cade, upon his victory against the Staffords, apparelled himself in Sir Hum

5 Predominated irresistibly over my passions, as the planets over those born under their influence. The old play led Shakspeare into this strange exhibition; a queen with the head of her murdered paramour on her bosom, in presence of her husband!

6 Instead of this line the old copy has:-
'Go bid Buckingham and Clifford gather
An army up, and meet with the rebels,'

* K. Hen. Come, Margaret; God, our hope, will

succour us.

Q. Mar. My hope is gone, now Suffolk is deceas'd. *K. Hen. Farewell, my lord; [To LORD SAY.] trust not the Kentish rebels.

* Buck. Trust nobody, for fear you be betray'd. Say. The trust I have is in mine innocence, And therefore am I bold and resolute. [Exeunt.

SCENE V. The same. The Tower. Enter LORD SCALES, and others on the Walls. Then enter certain Citizens, below.

Scales. How now? is Jack Cade slain?

1 Cit. No, my lord, nor likely to be slain; for they have won the bridge, killing all those that withstand them: The lord mayor craves aid of your honour from the Tower, to defend the city from the rebels.

Scales. Such aid as I can spare, you shall com

mand;

But I am troubled here with them myself,
The rebels have assay'd to win the Tower.
But get you to Smithfield, and gather head,
And thither will I send you Matthew Gough:
Fight for your king, your country, and your lives;
And so farewell, for I must hence again. [Exeunt.
SCENE VI. The same. Cannon Street. Enter
JACK CADE, and his Followers. He strikes his
Staff on London-stone.

Cade. Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon London-stone, I charge and command, that, of the city's cost, the pissing-conduit1 run nothing but claret wine this first year of our reign. And now, henceforward, it shall be treason for any that calls me other than-Lord Mortimer. Enter a Soldier running.

Sold. Jack Cade! Jack Cade!

Cade. Knock him down there. [They kill him.? *Smith. If this fellow be wise, he'll never call you Jack Cade more; I think he hath a very fair *warning.

Dick. My lord, there's an army gathered together in Smithfield.

Cade. Come then, let's go fight with them: But, hrst, go and set London Bridge on fire; and, if you can, burn down the Tower too. Come, let's away. [Exeunt.

SCENE VII. The same.

Smithfield. Alarum.

Enter on one side, CADE and his Company; on the other, Citizens, and the King's Forces, headed by MATTHEW GOUGH. They fight; the Citizens are routed, and MATTHEW GOUGH is slain. Cade. So, sirs:-Now go some and pull down the Savoy; others to the inns of court; down with them all.

Dick. I have a suit unto your lordship.

Cade. Be it a lordship thou shalt have it for that

word.

*

Dick. Only, that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.

'John. Mass, 'twill be sore law then ; for he was thrust in the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole vet. Aside. Smith. Nay, John, it will be stinking law; for his breath stinks with eating toasted cheese.

[Aside. Cade. I have thought upon it, it shall be so. Away, burn all the records of the realm; my mouth shall be the parliament of England.

* John. Then we are like to have biting statutes,
unless his teeth be pulled out.
[Aside.
* Cade. And henceforward all things shall be in

common.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. My lord, a prize, a prize! here's the Lord Say, which sold the towns in France; * he that made us pay one and twenty fifteens,' and * one shilling to the pound, the last subsidy.

Enter GEORGE BEVIS, with the LORD SAY.

8

Cade. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times.-Ay, thou say, thou serge, nay, thou buckram ford! now art thou within point-blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my majesty, for giving up of Normandy unto 'Monsieur Basimecu, the dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee, by these presence, even the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must sweep the court clean of such filth as 'thou art. Thou hast most traitorously corrupted

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the youth of the realm, in erecting a grammar'school: and whereas, before, our forefathers had 6 no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face, that thou hast men about thee, that usually talk of a noun, and a verb; and such abominable words, as no Christian ear can endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou hast put them in prison; and because they could not read, thou hast hanged them ;40 when, indeed, only for that cause, they have been most worthy to live. Thou dost ride on a foot-cloth,11 dost thou not?

Say. What of that?

Cade. Marry, thou oughtest not to let thy horse wear a cloak, when honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets.

king his father. See also W. of Wyrcestre, p. 357; and the Paston Letters, vol. i. p. 42.

5 This trouble had been saved Cade's reformers by his predecessor Wat Tyler. It was never re-edified till Henry VI. founded the hospital.'

6It was reported, indeed, that he should saie with great pride that within four daies all the laws of Eng. land should come foorth of his mouth.'-dolinshed, p. 432.

7 A fifteen was the fifteenth part of allthe moveables, or personal property of each subject.

1 Whatever offence to modern delicacy may be given by this imagery, such ornaments to fountains appear to have been no uncommon device in ancient times. The curious reader may see a design, probably from the pencil of Benedetto di Montagna, for a very singular fountain of this kind, in that elegant book the Hypnerotomachia, printed by Aldus in 1499. Le Grand, in his Vie Privee des François, mentions that at a feast made by Phillippe-le-Bon, there was 'une statue d'enfant nu, pose sur une roche, et qui de sa broquette pissait eau de rose. This conduit may, however, have been one set up at the standarde in Cheape, according to Stowe, by John Wels, grocer, mayor, in 1430, with a small cisterne for fresh water, having one cock continually run-lem in the time of Henry VI. Shakspeare's anachroning.

2 'He also put to execution in Southwarke diverse persons, some for breaking this ordinance, and other being his old acquaintance, lest they should bewray his base lineage, disparaging him for his usurped name of Mortimer. Holinshed, p. 634.

3 At that time London Bridge was of wood: the houses upon it were actually burnt in this rebellion. Hall says he entered London, and cut the ropes of the drawbridge.'

4 Holinshed calls Mathew Gough'a man of great wit and much experience in feats of chivalrie, the which in continuall warres had spent his time in serving of the

S Say is a kind of thin woollen stuff or serge. 9 Shakspeare is a little too early with this accusation. Yet Meerman, in his Origines Typographicæ, has availed himself of this passage to support his hypothes sis that printing was introduced into England by Fre. deric Corsellis, one of Coster's workmen, from Haer

nisms are not more extraordinary than those of his contemporaries. Spenser mentions cloth made at Lincoln in the ideal reign of King Arthur, and has adorned a castle at the same period with cloth of Arras and of Tours.

10 i. e. they were hanged because they could not claim the benefit of clergy.

11 A foot-cloth was a kind of housing, which covered the body of the horse: it was sometimes made of velvet and bordered with gold lace. This is a reproach truly characteristical: nothing gives so much offence to the lower orders as the sight of superfluities merely ostentatious.

* Dick. And work in their shirt too; *for example, that am a butcher. Say. You men of Kent,— Dick. What say you of Kent?

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as myself, |* Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?
*Whom have I injur'd, that ye seek my death?
*These hands are free from guiltless blood-shed-
ding,

Say. Nothing but this: 'Tis bona terra, mala gens.1

Cade. Away with him, away with him! he speaks Latin.

Say. Hear me but speak, and bear me where you will.

Kent, in the commentaries Cæsar writ, Is term'd the civil'st place of all this isle:2 Sweet is the country, because full of riches; The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy; Which makes me hope you are not void of pity. I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy : *Yet, to recover them, would lose my life. *Justice with favour have I always done; *Prayers and tears have mov'd me, gifts

never.

*This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts, O, let me live!

*

could*

*When have I aught exacted at your hands,
*Kent, to maintain the king, the realm, and you?
*Large gifts have I bestow'd on learned clerks,
*Because my book preferr'd me to the king:
*And-seeing ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven,-
*Unless you be possess'd with devilish spirits,
* You cannot but forbear to murder me.

This tongue hath parley'd unto foreign kings
For your behoof,-

*Cade. Tut! when struck'st thou one blow in *the field?

* Say. Great men have reaching hands; oft have I struck

*Cade. I feel remorse in myself with his words: *but I'll bridle it; he shall die, an it be but for pleading so well for his life. Away with him! *he has a familiar' under his tongue; he speaks * not o' God's name. Go, take him away, I say, and strike off his head presently; and then break into his son-in-law's house, Sir James Cromer," ' and strike off his head, and bring them both upon two poles hither.

'All. It shall be done.

*Say. Ah, countrymen! if when you make your prayers,

God should be so obdurate as yourselves, *How would it fare with your departed souls? * And therefore yet relent, and save my life. *Cade. Away with him, and do as I command ye. [Exeunt some, with LORD SAY, The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute there shall not a maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they have it:" Men shall hold of me in capite; and we charge and command, that their wives be as free as heart can wish, or tongue can tell.

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Dick. My lord, when shall we go to Cheap. side, and take up commodities upon our bills ?16 Cade. Marry, presently. 'All. O brave!

*Those that I never saw, and struck them dead. *Geo. O monstrous coward! what, to come be- Re-enter Rebels, with the Heads of LORD SAY, and

hind folks?

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Niek. No, 'tis Outalian: I know it well enough. 2 Ex his omnibus sunt humanissimi, qui Cantium Incolunt.' Cæsar. Thus translated by Ar. Golding, 1590:- Of all the inhabitants of the isle, the civilest are the Kentish-folke.' It is said also in the same words in Lyly's Euphues and his England, 1580.

3 This passage has been supposed corrupt merely because it was erroneously pointed. I have now placed a comma at Kent, to show that it is parenthetically spoken; and then I see not the slightest difficulty in the meaning of the passage. It was thus absurdly pointed in the folio:

When have Iaught exacted at your hands? Kent to maintain, the king, the realm, and you? Large gifts, have I bestow'd on learned clerks,' &c. 4 i. e. in consequence of.

5 The old copy reads the help of a hatchet.' There can be little doubt but that Dr. Farmer's emendation, 'pap of a hatchet,' is the true reading: it is a proper accompaniment to the hempen caudle.' Lyly wrote a pamphlet with the title of Pap with a Hatchet;' and the phrase occurs in his play of Mother Bombie: They give us pap with a spoone, and when we speake for what we love, pap with a hatchet.'

6 i. e. these hands are free from shedding guiltless or innocent blood.

his Son-in-law.

Cade. But is not this braver ?-Let them kiss one another, for they loved well, when they were alive. Now part them again, lest they consult about the giving up of some more towns in France. Soldiers, defer the spoil of the city until night: for with these borne before us, instead of maces, will we ride through the streets; and, at every <corner, have them kiss.-Away! [Exeunt.

SCENE VIII. Southwark. Alarum. Enter

CADE, and all his Rabblement.

Corner! kill and knock down! throw them into *Cade. Up Fish Street! down Saint Magnus' Thames!--[4 Parley sounded, then a Retreat.] *What noise is this I hear? Dare any be so bold *to sound retreat or parley, when I command them * kill?

7 A demon who was supposed to attend at call.

8 It was William Crowmer, sheriff of Kent, whom Cade put to death. Lord Say and he had been previ ously sent to the Tower, and both, or at least the former, convicted of treason at Cade's mock commission of Oyer and Terminer at Guildhall. See W. of Wyrces. ter, p. 470.

9 Alluding to an ancient usage, on which Beaumont and Fletcher have founded their play called the Custom of the Country. See Cowel's Law Dictionary, or Blount's Glossographia, 1651, in voce Marcheta. Blackstone is of opinion that it never prevailed in England, though he supposes it certainly did in Scotland. Boetius and Skene both mention this custom as existing in the time of Malcolm III. A. D. 1057. Sir D. Dalrymple controverts the fact, and denies the actual existence o the custom; as does Whitaker in his History of Manchester. There are several ancient grants from our early kings to their subjects, written in rude verse, and empowering them to enjoy their lands as 'free as heart can wish or tongue can tell. The authenticity of them, however, is doubtful. See Blount's Jocular Tenures.

10 An equivoque alluding to the halberts or bills borne by the rabble. Shakspeare has the same quibble in Much Ado about Nothing, Act iii. Sc. 3.

11 This may be taken from the Legend of Jack Cade in the Mirror for Magistrates, as Dr. Farmer obseves; but both Hall and Holinshed mention the circumstance

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