Good night, good night; ye’re gone. I’m very hungry:
Would I could find a fine frog! he would tell me
News from all parts o’ the world; then would I make
A careck of a cockle-shell, and sail
By east and north-east to the King of Pygmies,
For he tells fortunes rarely.”
She leaves us again, breaking into the first of her mad songs:
“For I’ll cut my green coat a foot above my knee;
Hey nonny, nonny, nonny.”
Up to this point the character of the Gaoler’s Daughter is not unworthy of Shakespeare, but Fletcher could not keep at so high a level for long. More than any of his contemporaries he creates mad folk for the purpose of embellishing his comedies; in this play, having developed a situation with many fine capabilities, he proceeds to rush in and spoil his own work in the worst possible way. The luckless girl is introduced into a rustic scene[84:2] and made to sing for the delectation of some peasants, to exchange coarse banter with them, and