Rob. What shall I say? Accept my hand and heart,[108]
Tied in a true love's knot, never to part.
Jane. Ay, marry, sir, these are better conditions than the inheritance of three fathers. Let me have love in esse; let lands follow in posse. Now I'll have thee as fast as the priest can despatch us, let him read as fast as he can.
King. The liveliest harmony that e'er I heard!
All instruments compar'd to these sweet tunes
Are dull and harsh: I joy to see so good a child,
A woman wonder; brothers reconciled.
[To Brewen.] You, worthy sir, did invite us to a feast,
We'll not forget it, but will be your guest;
Because we'll view these wonders o'er again,
Whose records do deserve a brazen pen;
But this above the rest in golden text
Shall be insculp'd, A woman never vex'd.
FOOTNOTES:
[103] This speech is not appropriated in the original, although divided from the wife's: neither are the words between brackets altogether an insertion of my own. The speech appears thus in the original:—
'Tis fairely given.
Thy soule on prisoners prayers shall mount to heaven:
The Plummers and the Workemen have survey'd the ground
From Paddington; from whence I'l have laid pipes
Long to London to convey sweet water into Ludgate;
From fresh Springs: when charity tunes the pipe, the
Poore man sings. Enter Keeper.
How now, Keeper.
As I had occasion to give a note here, I thought one sample of the original might gratify the reader's curiosity, and he has a miniature of the whole work. The poet, who is here very minute in the description of Stephen's charity, is justified by the inscription on the wall quoted by Stow. On this subject, however, Strype observes, "The water I find not to be altogether his gift; for that I perused lately a book, wherein I found a memorandum, that Sir Robert Knowles [Lord Mayor in 1400] gave maintenance for the supply of the prisoners of Ludgate and Newgate for ever" ("Appendix," p. 26). There can be little doubt, however, that this excellent man did something for the benefit of the prisoners, in regard to the supplying them with water.—Dilke.
[104] [Old copy, for diet.]
[105] I suspect Arundel to have been of Cranmer's school, and to have prophesied of what had actually happened. The following extract from a pamphlet of that time called, "Thieves falling out, true Men come by their Goods," [1615,] justifies the supposition: "And Shoreditch will complain to Dame Ann a Clear, if we of the sisterhood, should not uphold her jollity." It is not through the inattention of the editor that this, and the preceding speech of Brewen's, halt so lamentably; he has, in fact, exercised his utmost skill; but, as with many other passages in this drama, his success has not equalled his exertion. [The pamphlet cited by Dilke is a re-issue, under a changed title, of Robert Greene's "Disputation between a He-Coneycatcher and a She-Coneycatcher," 1592.]