the Savoy 2; 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 mouth3.

John. Mass, 'twill be sore law then; for he was 'thrust in the mouth with a spear, and 'tis not whole 6 yet.

[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 fifteens4, and one shilling to the pound, the last subsidy.

Enter GEORGE BEVIS, with the LORD SAY.

• Cade. Well, he shall be beheaded for it ten times.-Ay, thou say, thou serge, nay, thou

warres had spent his time in serving of the king his father.' See also W. of Wyrcestre, p. 357; and the Paston Letters, vol. i. P. 42.

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

3It was reported, indeed, that he should saie with great pride that within four daies all the laws of England should come foorth of his mouth. Holinshed, p. 432.

4 A fifteen was the fifteenth part of all the moveables, or personal property of each subject.

5 Say is a kind of thin woollen stuff or serge.

6

• buckram lord! now art thou within point-blank • of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my majesty, for giving up of Normandy unto Monsier 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 the youth of the realm, in erecting a grammar'school: and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used6; 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 6 noun, and a verb; and such abominable words, 6 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; when, indeed, only for that cause, they have been most worthy to live. Thou dost ride 6 on a foot-cloth8, dost thou not?

Say. What of that?

in

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

6 Shakspeare is a little too early with this accusation. Yet Meerman, in his Origines Typographicæ, has availed himself of this passage to support his hypothesis that printing was introduced into England by Frederic Corsellis, one of Coster's workfrom Haerlem in the time of Henry VI. Shakspeare's anachronisms are not more extraordinary than those of his conemporaries. Spenser mentions cloth made at Lincoln in eal reign of King Arthur, and has adorned a castle at the same period with cloth of Arras and of Tours.

men,

the

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

8 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; as myself, * for example, that am a butcher.

Say. You men of Kent,

Dick. What say you of Kent?

Say. Nothing but this: "Tis hona terra, mala gens9.

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 isle10: 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 could

never.

When have I aught exacted at your hands, Kent, to maintain the king, the realm, and youll? 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, —

9 After this line the old play proceeds thus:

Cade. Bonun terrum, What's that?

Dick. He speaks French.

Will. No, 'tis Dutch.

Nick. No, 'tis Outalian: I know it well enough.

-

10 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.

1 This passage has been supposed corrupt merely because it was crroneously 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 I aught exacted at your hands?

Kent to maintain, the king, the realm, and you?
Large gifts, have I bestow'd on learned clerks,' &c.

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

Those that I never saw, and struck them dead. *Geo. O monstrous coward! what, to come behind folks?

Say. These cheeks are pale for12 watching for your good.

Cade. Give him a box o'the ear, and that will make 'em red again.

Say. Long sitting to determine poor men's causes Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.

Cade. Ye shall have a hempen caudle then, and the pap of a hatchet13.

Dick. Why dost thou quiver, man?

Say. The palsy, and not fear, provoketh me. Cade. Nay, he nods at us; as who should say, 'I'll be even with you. I'll see if his head will 'stand steadier on a pole, or no: Take him away, and behead him.

Say. Tell me, wherein I have offended most? Have affected wealth, or honour; speak? Are my chests fill'd up with extorted gold? Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?

* Whom have I injur'd, that ye seek my death? These hands are free from guiltless blood-shedding14,

12 i. e. in consequence of.

13 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.

1 i. e. these hands are free from shedding guiltless or inuocent blood.

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

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 familiar15 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 Cromer16, 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 it1:

15 A demon who was supposed to attend at call. So in Love's Labour's Lost:

'Love is a familar; there is no angel but love.'

16 It was William Crowmer, sheriff of Kent, whom Cade put to death. Lord Say and he had been previously 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 Wyrcester, p. 470.

17 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, 1681, 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 of 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 versc, 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.