With bats and clubs? the matter

you.

-speak, I pray

Cit. Our bufinefs is not unknown to the Senate; they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we'll fhew 'em in deeds: they fay, poor fuitors have ftrong breaths; they fhall know we have ftrong arms too.

Men. Why, mafters, my good friends, mine honeft neighbours,

Will you undo yourselves?

2 Cit. We cannot, Sir, we are undone already. Men. I tell you, friends, moft charitable care Have the patricians of you. For your wants, Your fufferings in this dearth, you may as well Strike at the heaven with your ftaves, as lift them Against the Roman State; whose course will on The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs Of more strong links afunder, than can ever Appear in your impediment. For the dearth, The gods, not the patricians, make it; and Your knees to them (not arms) muft help. Alack, You are tranfported by calamity

Thither, where more attends you; and you flander The helms o' th' ftate, who care for you, like fathers, When you curfe them as enemies.

2 Cit. Care for us !-true, indeed!—they ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer us to famith, and their ftore-houfes crammed with grain: make edicts for ufury, to fupport ufurers; repeal daily any wholefome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing ftatutes daily to chain up ftrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us.

Men. Either you must

Confefs yourselves wondrous malicious,
Or be accused of folly. I fhall tell you

and re

A pretty tale, it may be you have heard it; But fince it ferves my purpose, I will venture (1) To ftale't a little more.

2 Cit. Well,

I'll hear it, Sir-yet you must not think
To fob off our difgraces with a tale:

66

(1) To feale't a little more.] Thus all the editions, but without any manner of fenfe, that I can find out. The Poet must have wrote, as I have corrected the text: and then the meaning will be plainly this. "Perhaps you may have heard my tale already, but for all that, I'll venture to make it more ftale and familiar to you, by "telling it over again." And nothing is more common than the verb in this fenfe, with our three capital dramatic poets. To begin with our own Author. Ant. and Cleop Age cannot wither her, nor cuftom fiale Her infinite variety.

Jul. Caf.

Were I a common laugher, or did ufe
To ftale with ordinary oaths my love, &c.
And again,

and imitations,

Which out of ufe, and ftaled by other men,
Begin his fafhion..

So B. Johnfon, in his Every Man in his Humour :

-and not content

To fale himself in all focieties,

He makes my house here common as a mart.

Cynthia's Revels:

I'll go tell all the argument of his play aforehand, and fo ftale his invention to the auditory before it come forth. And fo Beaumont and Fletcher, in their Beggar's "Bush : But I fhould lofe myself to speak him further, And fale, in my relation, the much good

You may be witnefs of.

Queen of Corinth :

---I'll not ftale 'em,

By giving up their characters; but leave you
To make your own difcoveries.

Wit at feveral Weapons:

You fhall not be feen yet, we'll fale your friend first,
So please but him to ftand for th' anti mafk.

But, and't please you, deliver.

[members

· Men. There was a time when all the body's Rebelled against the belly; thus accufed it; That only, like a gulf, it did remain

I' th' midst o' th' body, idle and unactive,
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing

Like labour with the reft; where th' other inftru

ments

Did fee, and hear, devife, inftruct, walk, feel,
And mutually participate, did minister
Unto the appetite, and affection common
Of the whole body. The belly answered

2 Cit. Well, Sir, what anfwer made the belly?
Men. (2) Sir, I fhall tell you.—With a kind of
fimile,

Which ne'er came from the lungs, but even thus-
(For look you, I may make the belly fmile,
As well as fpeak) it tauntingly replied

To th' difcontented members, th' mutinous parts,
That envied his receipt; even fo most fitly,
As you malign our fenators, for that
They are not fuch as you

2 Cit. Your belly's anfwer---what!

The kingly crowned head, the vigilant eye,
The counfellor heart, the arm our foldier,
Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter;
With other muniments and petty helps

In this our fabric, if that they

Men. What then?---'Fore me, this fellow speaks; What then? what then?

2 Git. Should by the cormorant belly be reftrained, Who is the ink o' th' body,--

(2) Sir, I shall tell you with a kind of fmile,

Which ne'er came from the lungs,] Thus all the editors, moft ftupidly, hitherto; as if Menenius were to file in telling his fory, though the lines, which immediately follow, make it evident that the belly was meant to smile.

Men. Well,---what then?

2 Cit. The former agents, if they did complain, What could the belly anfwer?

Men. I will tell you,

If you'll beftow a fmall (of what you have little) Patience a while; you'll hear the belly's anfwer." 2 Git. Y' are long about it.

Men. Note me this, good friend;
Your moft grave belly was deliberate,

Not rafh, like his accufers; and thus answered;
True is it, my incorporate friends, quoth he,
That I receive the general food at first,
Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
Because I am the store-house, and the shop
Of the whole body. But, if you do remember,
I fend it through the rivers of your blood,
Even to the court, the heart; to th' feat o' th' brain;
And, through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves, and fmall inferior veins,
From me receive that natural competency,
Whereby they live. And though that all at once,
You, my good friends, (this fays the belly) mark me--
Cit. Ay, Sir, well, well.

Men. Though all at once cannot
See what I do deliver out to each,

Yet I can make my audit up, that all
From me do back receive the flower of all,
And leave me but the bran. What fay you to't?
2 Cit. It was an anfwer;-how apply you this?
Men. The fenators of Rome are this good belly,
And you the mutinous members: for examine
Their counfels, and their cares; digeft things rightly
Touching the weal o' th' common; you fhall find,
No public benefit which you receive,

But it proceeds, or comes, from them to you,
And no way from yourfelves. What do you think,
You, the great toe of this aflembly?—

2 Cit. I the great toe! why, the great toe?
Men. For that, being one o' th' lowest, baseft,
poorest,

Of this most wife rebellion, thou goest foremost:
Thou rafcal, that are worst in blood to run,
Leadeft first, to win fome vantage.---

But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs, Rome and her rats are at the point of battle: (3) The one fide must have bale.

(3) The one fide must have bail.] It must be the vanquished fide, fure, that could want it; and who were likely to be their bail? but it is endless to question with negligence and Rupidity. The Poet undoubtedly wrote, as I have restored; The one fide muft have bale.

i. e. Sorrow, misfortune; must have the worst of it, be difcomfited. I have reftored this word in fome other paffages of our Author; and we meet with it in a play attributed to him, called Locrine:

-Yea, with these eyes thou haft seen her, and therefore pull them out, for they will work thy bale.

Mr Rowe, indeed, in his editions of our Poet, has errone oully printed bail too in this paffage; but in the old Quarto which I have of Locrine, printed in 1595, we find the word fpelt as it ought. And it was a term familiar both with authors prior in time, and contemporaries with Shakespeare. --and eke her fingirs long and fmale

She wrong full oft, and bade God on her rue,
And with the death to doe bote on her bale, &c.

Chaucer's Troil. and Grefeide. Book IV. ver. 738.
And the black holme, that loves the watery vale,
And the fweet cyprefs, fign of deadly bale.

And again,

Spenter's Tranflation of Virgil's Gnat.

Said he, what have I wretch deferved, that thus
Into this bitter bale I am outcast.

Thus greateft blifs is prone to greatest bale.

Idem ibid.

First Chorus of Hercules Oetaus from Seneca; printed in 1581.

And left my foe, falfe Promos here,

Do interrupt my tale;

Grant, gracious King, that uncontrouled,

I may report my bale.

Promes and Caffandra, (a play,) printed in 1578.