and the Rich Man's Son, the Young Woman, whom the Rich Man's Son is determined to marry against the wishes of his father, the Priest who marries them, and the Devil who stirs up strife in their household. The titles of these characters reveal the plot, and the following illustrates the main incident, the resolution of the son to pursue his own inclinations in opposition to the will of his father—a brave resolution, for which he pays dearly in the sequel. The Young Woman turns out a vixen, and after she has beaten him and rendered him sufficiently miserable, he is glad to make his escape from her, and seek refuge in his father's house.]

THE DISOBEDIENT CHILD.

SPITE

MY FANTASY WILL NEVER TURN.

PITE of his spite,* which that in vain,
Doth seek to force my fantasy,

I am professed for loss or gain,

To be thine own assuredly:

Wherefore let my father spite and spurn,
My fantasy will never turn!

Although my father of busy wit,
Doth babble still, I care not though;
I have no fear, nor yet will flit,
As doth the water to and fro;
Wherefore, &c.

For I am set and will not swerve,
Whom spiteful speech removeth nought;
And since that I thy grace deserve,
I count it is not dearly bought;

Wherefore, &c.

* Anger.

' And that which spites me more than all these wants.'

SHAKESPEARE.

Who is afraid, let you him fly,
For I shall well abide the brunt:
Maugre to his lips that listeth to lie,
Of busy brains as is the wont;
Wherefore, &c.

Who listeth thereat to laugh or lour,*
I am not he that aught doth reach;
There is no pain that hath the power,
Out of my breast your love to fetch;
Wherefore, &c.

For whereas he moved me to the school,
And only to follow my b book and learning:
He could never make me such a fool,
With all his soft words and fair speaking;
Wherefore, &c.

This minion here, this mincing trull,†
Doth please me more a thousand fold,
Than all the earth that is so full
Of precious stones, silver and gold;
Wherefore, &c.

Whatsoever I did it was for her sake,
It was for her love and only pleasure;
I count it no labour such labour to take,
In getting to me so high a treasure.
Wherefore, &c.

This day I intended for to be merry,
Although my hard father be far hence,
I know no cause for to be heavy,
For all this cost and great expense.
Wherefore, &c.

*To look sad.

Not a term of reproach.-Cf. 1 Henry VI.-HALLIWELL.

ANTHONY MUNDAY.

1553-1633

[ANTHONY MUNDAY, son of Christopher Munday, draper of London, was born in 1533, and losing his father at an early age, attempted the stage as an actor. It may be presumed that the experiment failed, as he afterwards apprenticed himself, in 1576, to one Allde, a stationer. Wearying of this occupation, or abandoning it for some other reason, he travelled into France and Italy, returning to England in or about 1579, and again trying the stage, in a species of extemporaneous entertainment, which Mr. Collier conjectures to have been similar to the Commedie al improviso of the Italians. According to a contemporary authority, the attempt was unsuccessful. He appears at this time to have entered the service of the Earl of Oxford, as one of his players, and to have been concerned as an evidence against the Roman Catholic priests who were executed at Tyburn in 1581. Not long afterwards he was appointed one of the messengers of her majesty's chamber, an office which he probably held till his death in 1633.

Munday was a prolific writer, and embraced in the wide circuit of his literary labours a remarkable variety of subjects. Mr. Collier has collected the titles of forty-seven works in which he was concerned as author, translator, or editor, including poems, tracts, histories, dramas, and pageants. Independently of plays of which he was the sole author, he wrote several in conjunction with Chettle, Wilson, Drayton, Dekker, Middleton, and others; was amongst the cluster of writers in Henslowe's pay, and one of the earliest contributors to the stage, in the period immediately preceding the era of Shakespeare.

The play from which the following songs are taken was discovered in MS. by Sir Frederic Madden, amongst the papers of the Mostyn family, and printed in 1851 by the Shakespeare Society, with an elaborate introduction by Mr.

Collier, rendered still more valuable by the addition of three of Munday's tracts against the Jesuits. The title of the MS. is The Book of John a Kent and John a Cumber. The structure of the piece fully bears out the character given by Meres of Munday as being the best plotter.' The action is ingeniously contrived; and, without having recourse to artificial expedients, the interest of the story is skilfully sustained.]

JOHN A KENT AND JOHN A CUMBER.

WANTON LOVE.

WHEN wanton love had walked astray,

Then good regard began to chide,

And meeting her upon the way,

Says, wanton lass, thou must abide;

For I have seen in many years

That sudden love breeds sullen fears.

Shall I never, while I live, keep my girl at school!
She hath wandered to and fro,

Further than a maid should go:

Shall she never, while she lives, make me more a fool.

LOVE IN PERPLEXITY.

Na silent shade, as I sat a sunning,

IN

There I heard a maid grievously complain;

Many moans she said, amongst her sighs still coming; All was

*

Then her agèd father counselled her the rather
To consent where he had placed his mind;
But her peevish mother brought her to another,
Though it was against both course and kind.

* The passage is thus given in the original.

Then like a father will I come to check my filly
For her gadding forth without my leave;
And if she repent it, I am well contented
Home again my darling to receive.

SUNDERED LOVE.

You that seek to sunder love,

Learn a lesson ere you go
And as others pains do prove,
So abide yourselves like woe.
For I find, and you shall feel
Self same turn of Fortune's wheel:
Then if wrong be [so] repaid,
Say deserved amends it made.

THE THEFT.

OU stole my love; fy upon you, fy!

You stole my love, fy, fy a;

Guessed you but what a pain it is to prove,

You for your love would die a;
And henceforth never longer

Be such a crafty wronger:
But when deceit takes such a fall,
Then farewell sly device and all.
You stole my love; fy upon you, fy!
You stole my love, fy, fy a.

LEWIS WAGER.

15

[THE Life and Repentance of Mary Magdalen is one of the numerous plays of this period founded on scriptural subjects. It appears from a passage in the prologue, noticed by Mr. Collier, to have been acted by itinerant players at country fairs, the spectators bestowing 'half-pence or pence' as they