Golding. And Security give her a dower, which shall be all the restitution he shall make of that huge mass he hath so unlawfully gotten. Touchstone. Excellently devised ! a good motion ! What says Mr. Security? Security. I say any thing, sir; what you'll ha' me say. Would I were no cuckold! Winifred. Cuckold, husband? why, I think this wearing of yellow has infected you. you be a Touchstone. Why, Mr. Security, that should rather be a comfort to you than a corrosive. If cuckold, it is an argument you shall be much made of; you shall have store of friends, never want money; you shall be eased of much o' your wedlock pain, others will take it for you: besides, you being an usurer (and likely to go to hell), the devils will never torment you: they'll take you for one of their own race. Again, if you be a cuckold, and know it not, you are an 71 Innocent ; if you know and endure it, a true Martyr. Security. I am resolved, sir.-Come hither, Winny. Touchstone. Well then, all are pleased, or shall be 71 Innocent] A term formerly used in common, and still retained in some parts of the kingdom for an idiot. Thus in Hall's Chronicle, Henry IV. fo. 6. 'depravynge and railyng on Kyng Rycharde, as an innocent, a dastard, a meiçocke," &c. Ben Jonson's Epicane. "she hits me a blow o' the ear, and calls me innocent, and lets me go." Ibid. A. 3. Sc. 4. "do you think you had married some innocent out of the hospital, that would stand with her hands thus, and a playse mouth and look upon you?" The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Fletcher and Shakespeare. A. 4. Sc. 1. "but this very day I ask'd her questions and she answer'd me, So far from what she was, so childishly, So sillily, as if she were a fool, An innocent! and I was very angry." I. R." "D'Arnville, with all thy wisdom thou'rt a fool, anon. Master Wolf, you look hungry methinks: have you no apparel to lend Francis to shift him? Quicksilver. No, sir, nor I desire none; but here make it my suit, that I may go home through the streets in these; as a spectacle, or rather an example, to the children of Cheapside.* Touchstone. Thou hast thy wish. Now, London, look about, And in this moral see thy glass run out. The solemn deeds which each of us have done; [Exeunt. * Referring to his jail dress, which, from what Mrs. Security says before of her husband, appears then (as now in many prisons) to have been yellow. C. EPILOGU S.* STAY, sir, I perceive the multitude are gathered together, to view our coming out at the Compter. See if the streets and the fronts of the houses be not stuck with people, and the windows fill'd with ladies, as on 73 the solemn day of the pageant! O may you find in this our pageant here The same contentment which you came to seek ; And as that shew but draws you once a year, May this attract you hither once a week! * Mr. Reed added "spoken by Quicksilver"-this may be so; but as the quartos do not mention the fact, it is better to append this conjecture in a note. 72 the solemn day of the pageant] i. e. on the day of the Lord Mayor's election, when pageants used to be exhibited. EDITION. "Eastward Hoe 75. As it was play'd in the Black "Friers. By the Children of her Majesties Revels. "Made by Geo. Chapman, Ben Jonson, Joh. Marston. "At London. Printed for William Aspley, 1605, " 4to." 73. Since Note 38, p. 238, was written, I have seen two copies of this Play, in neither of which are to be found the lines marked with commas. The Editions in every other respect appear to be the same. I therefore conclude, that after the publication a sheet was cancelled in order to leave out the passage which offended King James the First. |