Mr. B. I am content. What, women! will you play?
Mrs. G. I care not greatly.

Mrs. B. Nor I, but that I think she'll play me false.

Mr. G. I'll see she shall not.

Mrs. B. Nay, sir! she will be sure you shall not see.
You of all men shall never mark her hand :

She hath such close conveyance in her play.

Mr. G. Is she so cunning grown? Come, come, let's see! Mrs. G. Yea, Mistress Barnes! will ye not house your jests, But let them roam abroad so carelessly?

(Aside. Faith, if your jealous tongue utter another,

I'll cross ye with one, an ye were my mother.)

Come! shall we play?

Mrs. B. Ay! what shall we play a game?

Mrs. G. A pound a game.

Mr. G. How? wife!

Mrs. G. 'Faith, husband! not a farthing less.

Mr. G. It is too much. A shilling were good game.
Mrs. G. No! we will even be ill housewives once.

You have been oft ill husbands. Let's alone.

Mr. B. Wife! will you play so much?

Mrs. B. I would be loath to be so frank a gamester
As Mistress Goursey is; and yet for once

I'll play a pound a game as well as she.

Mr. B. Go to! you'll have your will.—

Mrs. B. Come! there's my stake!

Mrs. G. And there's mine!

Mrs. B. Throw for the dice! Ill luck then! they are yours.— Mr. B. Master Goursey! who says that gambling's bad

When such good angels walk 'twixt every cast?

Mr. G. This is not noble sport, but royal play.

Mr. B. It must be so where royals walk so fast.-
Mrs. B. Play right! I pray.

Mrs. G. Why so I do.

Mrs. B. Where stands your man?

Mrs. G. In his right place.

Mrs. B. Good faith, I think ye play me foul an ace.
Mr. B. No, wife! she plays ye true.

Mrs. B. Peace, husband! peace! I'll not be judged by you.
Mrs. G. Husband! Master Barnes! pray both ye walk.
We can not play if standers-by do talk.

Mr. G. Well to your game! we will not trouble ye.

The husbands stand aside.

Mrs. G. Where stands your man now?

Mrs. B.

Mrs. G. It stands between the points.
Mrs. B.

Doth he not stand right?

And that's my spite.
But yet methinks the dice run much uneven,
That I throw but deuce-ace and you eleven.
Mrs. G. And yet you see that I cast down the hill.
Mrs. B. Ay! I beshrew ye; 'tis not with my will.
Mrs. G. Do ye beshrew me ?

Mrs. B.

No! I beshrew the dice

That turn you up more at once than me at twice.
Mrs. G. Well, you shall see them turn for you anon.
Mrs. B. But I care not for them when your game's done.
Mrs. G. My game! what game?

Mrs. B.

Your game, your game at tables. Mrs. G. Well, Mistress! well! I have read Æsop's Fables,

And know your moral meaning well enough.

Mrs. B. Lo! you'll be angry now. Here's good stuff.-
Mr. G. How now? women! who hath won the game?
Mrs. G. Nobody yet.

Mr. B. Your wife's the fairest for it.

Mrs. B. Ay! in your eye.

Mrs. G. How do you mean?

Mrs. B. He holds you fairer for't than I.

Mrs. G. For what, forsooth?

Mrs. B. Good gamester! for your game.

Mr. B. Well, try it out! 'tis all but in the bearing.—
Mrs. B. Nay! if it come to bearing, she'll be best.
Mrs. G. Why, you're as good a bearer as the rest.

Mrs. B. Nay! that's not so; you bear one man too many.
Mrs. G. Better to do so than to bear not any.-

Mr. B. (aside.) Beshrew me, but my wife's jests grow too bitter.
Plainer speeches for her were the more fitter.

Old malice lies embowel'd in her tongue;

And new-hatch'd hate makes every jest a wrong.—

Mrs. G. Look ye, Mistress! now I hit ye.

Mrs. B. Why, ay! you never use to miss a blot.
Especially when it stands so fair to hit.

Mrs. G. How mean ye? Mistress Barnes!

Mrs. B. That Mistress Goursey's in the hitting vein.
Mrs. G. I hit your man.

Mrs. B. Ay! ay! my man, my man: but had I known,
I would have had my man stood nearer home.
Mrs. G. Why, had you kept your man in his right place
I should not then have hit him with an ace.

Mrs. B. Right, by the Lord! a plague upon the bones!
Mrs. G. And a hot mischief on the curser too!—

Mr. B. How now? wife!

Mr. G. Why, what's the matter? woman!

Mrs. G. It is no matter, I am

Mrs. B. Ay! you are.

Mrs. G. What am I?

Mrs. B. Why, that's as you will be ever.

Mrs. G. That's every day as good as Barnes' wife.

Mrs. B. And better too: then what needs all this trouble?
A single horse is worse than that bears double.

Mr. B. Wife! go to! have regard to what you say!
Let not your words pass forth the verge of reason;

But keep within the bounds of modesty!

For ill-report doth like a bailiff stand

To pound the straying and the wit-lost tongue,
And make it forfeit into folly's hands.

Well, wife! you know it is no honest part

To entertain such guests with jests and wrongs.
What will the neighbouring country vulgar say,

Whenas they hear that you fell out at dinner?
Forsooth, they'll call it a pot-quarrel straight;
The best they'll name it is a woman's jangling.
Go to be ruled! be ruled!

Mrs. B. God's lord! be ruled! be ruled!

What! think ye I have such a baby's wit,
To have a rod's correction for my tongue?
School infancy! I am of age to speak ;

And I know when to speak. Shall I be chid
For such a

Mrs. G. What a? Nay! Mistress! speak it out!
I scorn your stopt compares. Compare not me
To any but your equals, Mistress Barnes!

Mr. G. Peace! wife! be quiet!

Mr. B. O persuade ! persuade !

Wife! Mistress Goursey! shall I win your thoughts
To composition of some kind effects?

Wife! if you love your credit, leave this strife,

And come shake hands with Mistress Goursey here ! Mrs. B. Shall I shake hands? Let her go shake her heels! She gets nor hands nor friendship at my hands.

And so, sir! while I live I will take heed

What guests I bid again unto my house. Mr. B. Impatient woman! will ye be so stiff In this absurdness?

Mrs. B. I am impatient now I speak.

But, sir! I'll tell you more another time.
Go to! I will not take it as I have done.

She leaves the room.

Mrs. G. Nay! she might stay: I will not long be here

To trouble her.

And the quarrel so begun goes on, parting old friends and young lovers, culminating at last in a fight between the two angry women.

THOMAS DEKKER.

1570-5-1640?

THE SHOEMAKERS' HOLIDAY.

The argument of the play, as set down by the Author:-"Sir Hugh LACIE, Earl of Lincoln, had a young gentleman of his own name, his near kinsman, that loved the LORD MAYOR'S daughter of London; to prevent and cross which love, the Earl caused his kinsman to be sent Colonel of a company into France: who resigned his place to another gentleman his friend, and came disguised like a Dutch Shoemaker, to the house of SIMON EYRE in Tower Street, who served the Mayor and his household with shoes." Our scene is EYRE's shop, present his foreman FIRKE, HODGE and other journeymen; EYRE, and his WIFE just entering.

Firke. Mum! here comes my Dame, and my Master! She'll
scold, on my life, for loitering this Monday; but all's one.
Let them all say what they can, Monday's our holiday.
Wife. You sing, Sir Sauce! but I beshrew your heart,
I fear for this your singing we shall smart.

Firke. Smart for me, Dame! why, Dame! why?

Hodge. Master! I hope you'll not suffer my Dame to take down your journeymen.

Firke. If she take me down, I'll take her up; yea! and take her down too, a button-hole lower.

Eyre. Peace, Firke! Not I, Hodge! by the life of Pharoah, by the Lord of Ludgate, by this beard, every hair whereof I value at a king's ransom, she shall not meddle with you. Peace, you bombast-cotton-candle quean! away, Queen of Clubs! quarrel not with me and my men, with me and my fine Firke.

Wife. Yea, yea, man! You may use me as you please. But let that pass!