The works of Thomas Middleton, Volume 1 (of 5)

SCENE III.

Chapter 682,212 wordsPublic domain

_An Apartment in the Judge’s House._

_Enter Judge_, EASY _and_ THOMASINE _in talk with him_: SHORTYARD _and_ FALSELIGHT _in the custody of Officers_.

JUD. His cozenages are odious: he the plaintiff! Not only fram’d deceitful in his life, But so to mock his funeral! EASY. Most just: The Livery all assembled, mourning weeds Throughout his house e’en down to his last servant, The herald richly hir’d to lend him arms Feign’d from his ancestors (which I dare swear knew No other arms but those they labour’d with), All preparations furnish’d, nothing wanted Save that which was the cause of all, his death,— If he be living! JUD. ’Twas an impious part. EASY. We are not certain yet it is himself, But some false spirit that assumes his shape, And seeks still to deceive me.

_Enter_ QUOMODO.

QUO. O, are you come?— My lord, they’re here.—Good morrow, Thomasine. JUD. Now, what are you? QUO. I’m[1148] Quomodo, my lord, and this my wife; Those my two men, that are bound wrongfully. JUD. How are we sure you’re he? QUO. O, you cannot miss, my lord! JUD. I’ll try you: Are you the man that liv’d the famous cozener? QUO. O no, my lord! JUD. Did you deceive this gentleman of his right, And laid nets o’er his land? QUO. Not I, my lord. JUD. Then you’re not Quomodo, but a counterfeit.— Lay hands on him, and bear him to the whip. QUO. Stay, stay a little, I pray.—Now I remember me, my lord, I cozen’d him indeed; ’tis wondrous true. JUD. Then I dare swear this is no counterfeit: Let all doubts cease; this man is Quomodo. QUO. Why, la, you now, you would not believe this? I am found what I am. JUD. But setting these thy odious shifts apart, Why did that thought profane enter thy breast, To mock the world with thy supposed death? QUO. Conceive you not that, my lord? a policy. JUD. So. QUO. For having gotten the lands, I thirsted still To know what fate would follow ’em—— JUD. Being ill got. QUO. Your lordship apprehends me. JUD. I think I shall anon. QUO. And thereupon, I, out of policy, possess’d my son, Which since I have found lewd;[1149] and now intend To disinherit him for ever. Not only this was in my death set down, But thereby a firm trial of my wife, Her constant sorrows, her rememb’ring virtues; All which are clews; the shine of a next morning Dries ’em up all, I see’t. JUD. Did you profess wise cozenage, and would dare To put a woman to her two days’ choice, When oft a minute does it? QUO. Less, a moment, The twinkling of an eye, a glimpse, scarce something does it.[1150] Your lordship yet will grant she is my wife? THO. O heaven! JUD. After some penance and the dues of law, I must acknowledge that. QUO. I scarce like Those dues of law. EASY. My lord, Although the law too gently ’lot his wife, The wealth he left behind he cannot challenge. QUO. How? EASY. Behold his hand against it. [_Shewing writings._ QUO. He does devise all means to make me mad, That I may no more lie with my wife In perfect memory; I know’t: but yet The lands will maintain me in my wits; The land[s] will do so much for me. JUD. [_reads_] _In witness whereof I have set to mine own hand_, EPHESTIAN QUOMODO. ’Tis firm enough your own, sir. QUO. A jest, my lord; I did I knew not what. JUD. It should seem so: deceit is her own foe; Craftily gets, and childishly lets go. But yet the lands are his. QUO. I warrant ye. EASY. No, my good lord, the lands know the right heir; I am their master once more. QUO. Have you the lands? EASY. Yes, truly, I praise heaven. QUO. Is this good dealing? Are there such consciences abroad? How, Which way could he come by ’em? SHO. My lord, I’ll quickly resolve[1151] you that it comes to me. This cozener, whom too long I call’d my patron, To my thought dying, and the fool his son Possess’d of all, which my brain partly sweat for, I held it my best virtue, by a plot To get from him what for him was ill got—— QUO. O beastly Shortyard! SHO. When, no sooner mine, But I was glad more quickly to resign. JUD. Craft once discover’d shews her abject line. QUO. He hits me every where; for craft once known Does teach fools wit, leaves the deceiver none. My deeds have cleft me, cleft me! [_Aside._

_Enter Officers with_ LETHE _and the Country Wench_; REARAGE, SUSAN, SALEWOOD, HELLGILL, _and_ MOTHER GRUEL.

FIRST OFF. Room there. QUO. A little yet to raise my spirit, Here master Lethe comes to wed my daughter: That’s all the joy is left me.—Hah! who’s this? JUD. What crimes have those brought forth? SALE.[1152] The shame of lust: Most viciously on this his wedding morning This man was seiz’d in shame with that bold strumpet. JUD. Why, ’tis she he means to marry. LET. No, in truth. JUD. In truth you do: Who for his wife his harlot doth prefer, Good reason ’tis that he should marry her. COUN. W. I crave it on my knees; such was his vow at first. HELL. I’ll say so too, and work out mine own safety.— [_Aside._ Such was his vow at first indeed, my lord, Howe’er his mood has chang’d him. LET. O vild[1153] slave! COUN. W. He says it true, my lord. JUD. Rest content, He shall both marry and taste punishment. LET. O, intolerable! I beseech your good lordship, if I must have an outward punishment, let me not marry an inward, whose lashes[1154] will ne’er out, but grow worse and worse. I have a wife stays for me this morning with seven hundred pound in her purse: let me be speedily whipt and be gone, I beseech your lordship. SALE.[1155] He speaks no truth, my lord: behold the virgin, Wife to a well-esteemed gentleman, Loathing the sin he follows. LET. I was betray’d; yes, faith. REAR. His own mother,[1156] my lord, Which he confess’d through ignorance and disdain, His name so chang’d to abuse the world and her. LET. Marry a harlot, why not? ’tis an honest man’s fortune. I pray, did not one of my countrymen marry my sister? why, well then, if none should be married but those that are honest, where should a man seek a wife after Christmas? I pity that gentleman that has nine daughters to bestow, and seven of ’em seeded already; they will be good stuff by that time. I do beseech your lordship to remove The punishment; I am content to marry her. JUD. There’s no removing of your punishment— LET. O, good my lord! JUD. Unless one here assembled, Whom you have most unnaturally abus’d, Beget your pardon. LET. Who should that be? Or who would do’t that has been so abus’d? A troublesome penance!—Sir—— QUO. Knave in your face! leave your mocking, Andrew; marry your quean, and be quiet. LET. Master Easy—— EASY. I’m sorry you take such a bad course, sir. LET. Mistress[1157] Quomodo—— THO. Inquire my right name again[1158] next time; now go your ways like an ass as you came. LET. Mass, I forget my mother all this while; I’ll make her do’t at first.—Pray, mother, your blessing for once. MOTH. G. Call’st me mother? out, I defy[1159] thee, slave! LET. Call me slave as much as you will, but do not shame me now: let the world know you are my mother. MOTH. G. Let me not have this villain put upon me, I beseech your lordship. JUD. He’s justly curs’d: she loathes to know him now, Whom he before did as much loathe to know.— Wilt thou believe me, woman? MOTH. G. That’s soon done. JUD. Then know him for a villain; ’tis thy son. MOTH. G. Art thou Andrew, my wicked son Andrew? LET. You would not believe me, mother. MOTH. G. How art thou changed! Is this suit fit for thee, a tooth-drawer’s son? This country has e’en spoiled thee since thou earnest hither: thy manners [were] better than thy clothes, but now whole clothes and ragged manners: it may well be said that truth goes naked; for when thou hadst scarce a shirt, thou hadst more truth about thee. JUD. Thou art thine own affliction, Quomodo. Shortyard, we banish thee; it is our pleasure.[1160] SHO. Henceforth no woman shall complain for measure. JUD. And that all error from our works may stand, We banish Falselight evermore the land. [_Exeunt omnes._

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON: PRINTED BY LEVEY, ROBSON, AND FRANKLYN, 46 St. Martin’s Lane.

Footnotes

# 1:

Or _Midleton_.

# 2:

In _Harl. MS._ 1116, fol. 115, is a note of this grant to William Middleton; but it supplies no information about his place of residence. The Middletons of Middleton Hall bore “Argent, a saltier ingrailed Sable:” he does not appear, however, to have belonged to that family; see Nicolson and Burns’s _Hist. of West. and Cumb._, vol. i. p. 255.

I may add, that from the dedication of _The Triumphs of Truth_ to Sir Thomas Middleton, Lord Mayor of London in 1613, we learn that our dramatist was not related to him: “next, in that myself, though unworthy, being of _one name_ with your lordship ... as if one fate did prosperously cleave to _one name_,” &c., vol. v. p. 217. The family of Sir Thomas Middleton was of Denbigh: he was brother to Sir Hugh Middleton.

# 3:

_Dethicks Guifts_, _Vincent_ 162, fol. 215, Coll. Arms.

# 4:

Of the various persons named William Middleton whose wills are extant, I cannot identify one with the father of the poet.

C 2. _Vis. Surrey_, 1623, p. 328, Coll. Arms.—This pedigree (translated) is also in _Harl. MS._ 1046, fol. 209.

# 6:

“Amy” in _Harl. MS._

# 7:

Mr. Campbell observes, that some verses, which will be afterwards cited, “allude to the poet’s white locks, so that he was probably born as early as the middle of the 16th century.”—_Spec. of the Brit. Poets_, vol. iii. p. 118. The verses in question I believe to be a forgery of Chetwood.

# 8:

“Mary” in _Harl. MS._

# 9:

“Marbecke” in _Harl. MS._,—rightly perhaps. I can find no mention of him elsewhere.

# 10:

_Harl. MS._ 1912, fol. 52.—No record of their admission is preserved in Gray’s Inn.

# 11:

In the Library of the Edinburgh University is a unique copy of _Epigrams and Satires: Made by Richard Middleton of Yorke Gentleman, London_, 1608. 4to. The Epistle Dedicatory is addressed “To the Gentleman of condigne desert William Bellasses.” The Epigrams end on p. 19; the Satires, entitled _Times Metamorphoses_, occupy the remainder of the work, which extends in all to 39 pages. The author is a wretched scribbler, and sometimes uses the grossest language.

# 12:

_The Silkewormes, and their Flies: Liuely described in verse, by T. M._, &c. _London_, 1599. 4to, is certainly not by Middleton: according to some authorities, the writer’s name was Moffat.

In _England’s Parnassus, or The Choysest Flowers of our Moderne Poets_, &c. 1600, 8vo, the following quotations are found:

“These two parts belong Vnto true knowledge, words and teares haue force To mooue compassion in the sauage mindes Of brutish people reason-wanting kindes. _Tho. Middleton._” (p. 281, under “Teares.”)

“There neuer shall bee any age so cleere, But in her smoothe face shall some faults appeare. _Th. Middl._” (p. 321, under “World.”)

But the compiler has given them to our author by mistake: both are taken from _The Legend of Humphrey Duke of Glocester_, written by CHRISTOPHER Middleton; see the reprint of that poem in the tenth vol. of _The Harleian Miscellany_, p. 170 and p. 182. ed. Park.

_Corona Minervæ. Or a Masque Presented before Prince Charles his Highnesse, The Duke of Yorke his Brother, and the Lady Mary his Sister, the 27th of February, at the Colledge of the Mvseum Minervæ._ _London_, 1635. 4to, has been ascribed to Middleton by those who were not aware that he was dead at that period.

Lowndes (_Bibliog. Manual_) attributes to Middleton _The pleasant comodie of Patient Grissell_, 1607, and a short tract called _Sir Robert Sherley sent Ambassadour, in the name of the King of Persia, to Sigismond the Third_, &c. &c. 1609. 4to. The former piece was written by Dekker, Chettle, and Haughton (see Malone’s _Shakespeare_, by Boswell, vol. iii. p. 323); the latter (which is reprinted in _The Harleian Miscellany_, vol. v.) has no author’s name, and, as far as I can discover, contains nothing to indicate that it is by Middleton.

# 13:

In act iii. scene 1. (vol. i. p. 48), the Clerk having read from the church-book “_Agatha, the daughter of Pollux—born in an. 1540_,” adds, “and NOW ’TIS 99.” Similar notices have served to ascertain the periods at which several other old dramas were first brought upon the stage; but they are not always to be relied on as evidence to that effect. In our author’s _No Wit, No Help like a Woman’s_, act iii.