HONESTY.
I thank your grace. You that will damn yourselves for lucre's sake,
And make no conscience to deceive the poor;
You that be enemies of the commonwealth,
To send corn over to enrich the enemy;
And you that do abuse the word of God,
And send over wool and tin, broad-cloth and lead;
And you that counterfeit kings' privy-seals,
And thereby rob the willing-minded commonalty;
I warn you all that use such subtle villainy,
Beware lest you, like these, be found by Honesty.
Take heed, I say, for if I catch you once,
Your bodies shall be meat for crows,
And the devil shall have your bones.
And thus, though long, at last we make an end,
Desiring you to pardon what's amiss,
And weigh the work, though it be grossly penn'd.
Laugh at the faults, and weigh it as it is,
And Honesty will pray upon his knee,
God cut them off, that wrong the prince or commonalty.
And may her days of bliss never have end,
Upon whose life so many lives depend.
FINIS.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is one of the six additional dramas which the Editor of the present volume caused to be [first] inserted in the impression which came out between the years 1825 and 1827. It may be here stated that his duties, from various circumstances, were almost solely confined to these six dramas, four of them by Robert Greene, by George Peele, by Thomas Lodge, and by Thomas Nash, no specimens of whose works had been previously included: the two other plays, then new to the collection, were "The World and the Child," and "Appius and Virginia."
[2] See "Extracts from the Registers of the Stationers' Company" (printed for the Shakespeare Society), vol. ii. p. 230.
[3] [The orthography has now been modernised in conformity with the principle adopted with regard to the rest of the collection.]
[4] "Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court." by Peter Cunningham, Esq. (printed for the Shakespeare Society), p. 176.
[5] Ibid. p. 36.
[6] Printed for the Shakespeare Society, in 1845, from the original most valuable MS. preserved in Dulwich College.
[7] Hardly so, perhaps, as scarcely any drama of this date occurs without such a prayer. The earliest in which we have seen the prayer for Elizabeth is the interlude of "Nice Wanton," 1560.