Rat. Oh, my dear wife! help, sirs!

[She is carried off. Banks. You see your work, mother Bumby." Saw. My work? should she and all you here run mad,

Is the work mine?

Cud. No, on my conscience, she would not hurt a devil of two years old.

Re-enter RATCLIFFE.

How now? what's become of her?

Rat. Nothing; she's become nothing, but the miserable trunk of a wretched woman. We were in her hands as reeds in a mighty tempest: spite of our strengths, away she brake; and nothing in her mouth being heard, but "the devil, the witch, the witch, the devil!" she beat out her own brains, and so died.

Cud. It's any man's case, be he never so wise, to die when his brains go a wool-gathering.

Banks, Masters, be ruled by me; let's all to a Justice. Hag, thou hast done this, and thou shalt answer it.

Saw. Banks, I defy thee.

Banks. Get a warrant first to examine her, then ship her to Newgate; here's enough, if all her other villanies were pardon'd, to burn her for a witch. You have a spirit, they say, comes to you

5 You see your work, mother Bumby.] Farmer Banks is very familiar with the names of our old plays. Mother Bombie is the title of one of Lyly's comedies, of which she is the heroine; as is Gammer Gurton (as he calls the witch just below) of the farcical drama which takes its name from her, and her needle.

in the likeness of a dog; we shall see your cur at one time or other: if we do, unless it be the devil himself, he shall go howling to the gaol in one chain, and thou in another.

Saw. Be hang'd thou in a third, and do thy worst! Cud. How, father? you send the poor dumb thing howling to the gaol? he that makes him howl, makes me roar.

Banks. Why, foolish boy, dost thou know him? Cud. No matter if I do or not; he's bailable, I am sure, by law;-but if the dog's word will not be taken, mine shall.

Banks. Thou bail for a dog!

Cud. Yes, or bitch either, being my friend. I'll lie by the heels myself, before puppison shall; his dog-days are not come yet, I hope.

Banks. What manner of dog is it? didst ever see him?

Cud. See him? yes, and given him a bone to gnaw twenty times. The dog is no court-foisting hound, that fills his belly full by base wagging his tail; neither is it a citizen's water-spaniel, enticing his master to go a-ducking twice or thrice a week, whilst his wife makes ducks and drakes at home: this is no Paris-garden bandog' neither, that keeps a bow-wow-wowing, to have butchers bring their curs thither; and when all comes to all, they run

6

❝ Paris-garden bandog.] A fierce kind of mastiff kept to bait bears. Paris-garden, where these brutal sports were regularly exbibited, was situated on the Bank-side in Southwark, close to the Globe Theatre, so that there was a delectable communion of amusements. Jonson adverts to this with great bitterness. The garden is said to have had its name from one de Paris, who built a house there in the reign of Richard II.

away like sheep: neither is this the black dog of Newgate."

Banks. No good-man son-fool; but the dog of hell-gate.

Cud. I say, good-man father-fool, it's a lie.
All. He's bewitch'd.

Cud. A gross lie, as big as myself. The devil in St. Dunstan's will as soon drink with this poor cur, as with any Temple-bar-laundress, that washes and wrings lawyers.

Dog. Bow, wow, wow, wow!

All. Oh, the dog's here, the dog's here!
Banks. It was the voice of a dog.

Cud. The voice of a dog? if that voice were a dog's, what voice had my mother? so am I a dog: bow, wow, wow! It was I that bark'd so, father, to make coxcombs of these clowns.

Banks. However, we'll be coxcomb'd no longer: away, therefore, to the justice for a warrant; and then, Gammer Gurton, have at your needle of witchcraft.

Saw. And prick thine own eyes out. Go, pee[Exeunt BANKS, RAT. and Countrymen.

vish fools!

7 The black dog of Newgate.] This antient Cerberus is unknown to me. Perhaps he formed the sign of some noted tavern contiguous to that immanis aula: what advanced him to this bad eminence must be left to the discussion of future critics. The water spaniel, mentioned here and elsewhere by Cuddy, was an animal in great request. Islington, at that time, abounded in ponds, some of them of considerable size; and to hunt ducks in these, appears, from our old dramatists, to have been the favourite recreation of the holyday citizens. Islington formed at once the boundary of their travels and their pleasures. To advance farther, and hunt the stag, like their desperate descendants, in the unknown wilds of Epping Forest, would have appeared to these placid sportsmen like following Shah Allum to a tiger-hunt.

Cud. Ningle, you had like to have spoiled all with your bow-ings. I was glad to put them off with one of my dog-tricks, on a sudden; I am bewitched, little Cost-me-nought, to love thee,a pox,—that morrice makes me spit in thy mouth. -I dare not stay; farewell, ningle; you whoreson dog's nose! farewell, witch! [Exit.

Dog. Bow, wow, wow, wow!

Saw. Mind him not, he's not worth thy worrying; Run at a fairer game: that foul-mouth'd knight, Scurvy Sir Arthur, fly at him, my Tommy, And pluck out's throat.

Dog. No, there's a dog already biting,-his conscience.

Saw. That's a sure blood-hound. Come, let's home and play;

Our black work ended, we'll make holyday.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.-A Bed-room in CARTER's House.FRANK in a Slumber.

Enter KATHerine.

Kath. Brother, brother! so sound asleep? that's well.

Frank. (Waking.) No, not I, sister; he that's wounded here,

As I am, (all my other hurts are bitings

Of a poor flea,) but he that here once bleeds,
Is maim'd incurably.

Kath. My good sweet brother;

(For now my sister must grow up in you,)

Though her loss strikes you through, and that I

feel

The blow as deep, I pray thee be not cruel

In

To kill me too, by seeing you your own helpless sorrow. And if you can give physic to

I shall be well.

Frank. I'll do my best.

Kath. I thank you;

cast away

Good love, Good love, sit up; yourself,

What do you look about you for?

Frank. Nothing, nothing;

But I was thinking, sister

Kath. Dear heart, what?

Frank. Who but a fool would thus be bound to

a bed,

Having this room to walk in?

Kath. Why do you talk so? Would you were fast asleep.

Frank, No, no; I am not idle."

But here's my meaning; being robb'd as I am, Why should my soul, which married was to her's, Live in divorce, and not fly after her?

Why should not I walk hand in hand with Death, To find my love out?

Kath. That were well, indeed,

Your time being come; when Death is sent to call you,

No doubt you shall meet her.

8

No, no, I am not idle.] i. e. Wandering. He judges from Katherine's speech, that she suspects him, as indeed she does, of being light-headed.