payd for it well; and truly more than ever it cost him. Than ware the vilaynes or paysauns mervelously angry, and in their language curssed the Parson perillously, some with a myscheve and vengeaunce; and some sayd, God geve hym an hundred drouse, for he hathe made amonge us many a fole and totynge ape.

But the Parson

cared not for all theyr cursses. And this subtyle dede was spred all the countre about."

THE ANT AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

The Ant & the Nightingale, or Father Hubbard's Tales. (Small Quarto) Printed by T. C. for Thos. Bushell, & are to be solde by Jeffrey Charlton, at his Shop, at the North Doore of Paules. 1604.

FOR the use of this very rare and curious little volume, I am also indebted to the kindness of Marquis Stafford.

The contents are tales, with poetry intermixed. The tales are related by an Ant to a Nightingale to save her life, the Ant having crept up a tree, and got within reach of the Nightingale's beak. The author thus introduces his book

ΤΟ

TO THE READER.

Shall I tell you what, reader? but first I should call you gentle, curteous and wise, but tis no matter, theyre but foolish words of course and better left out than printed; for if you be so, you need not be called so; and if you be not so, then were lawe against me for calling you out of your names; by John of Powles Church Yard I sweare, & that oath will be taken at any haberdashers, I never wisht this booke better fortune than to fall into the hands of a true spelling Printer, and an honest stitching Bookseller; & if honestie could be solde by the bushell, like oysters, I had rather have one bushell of honestie than three of monie.

Why I call these Father Hubbard's Tales, is not to have them called in againe, as the tales of Mother Hubbard; the worlde would shewe little judgment in that yfaith, & I should say then plena stultorum omnia; for I entreat here neither of rugged beares nor apes; no, nor the lamentable downefal of the olde wives platters, I deale with no such mettall. What is mirth in mee is harmlesse as the Quarter Jacks in Powles, that are up with their elbowes foure times an houre, and yet misuse no creature living. verie bitterest in me, is but a physical frost,

The

that nips the wicked blood a little, & so makes the whole bodie the more wholesomer, and none

can

can justly except at me, but some riotous vaunting Kit, or some gentleman swallowing Mal Kin2, then to condemn these tales following, because Father Hubbard tells them in the small syze of an Ant, is even as much as if these two wordes God & Divil were printed both in one line; to skip it over, and say that line were naught, because the Divil were in it; Sat Sapienti, &

QUARTER JACKES IN PAULES.

It may be presumed from this passage, that formerly the quarters were struck at St. Paul's church clock by the figures of men, as they are now at St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street. See p. 256.

2 MALKIN.

The diminution of Mary.

See Shakspeare's Coriolanus.

The kitchin Malkin pins

Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck.

Some readers may require to be informed that lockram means some sort of coarse linen: reechy means greasy. See also Pericles Prince of Tyre.

None would look on her,

But cast their gazes on Marina's face;

Whilst ours was blurted at, and held a Malkin

Not worth the time of day.

ACT IV. Sc. 4.

That is a mean wretch, not worth saluting with good day

I hope there be many wise men in all the twelve

companies'.

Yours if you reade without

Spelling or hacking

T. M.

The exordium is in verse, and is thus intro

duced:

Now in the pathlesse region of the ayre
The winged passenger had left to soare,
Except the bat or owle, who bade sad care,
And Philomel that nightly doth deplore.

In such contentious tunes her change of shape
Wrought first by perfidy and lustful rape,

This poore musician sitting all alone
On a greene hauthorne, from the thunder blest,
Carrolls in varied notes her antique mone,
Keeping a sharpned briar against her brest.
Her innocence this watchful payne doth take,.
To shun the adder or the speckled snake.

Under the tree whereon the poore bird sate
There was a bed of busie toyling ants,
That in their summer winters comfort gate,
Teaching poore men how to shun after wants.

Whose rules, if sluggards could be learnt to keepe,
They woulde not starye awake, lye cold asleepe.

3 TWELVE COMPANIES.

Originally the chartered city companies were only twelve in number.

One

One of these busie brethren having donne
His dayes true labour got upon the tree,
And with his little nimble legs did runne,
Pleased with the hearing, he desired to see
What wondrous creature nature had composde,
In whom such gracious musick was enclosed.

To save her life, the Ant tells the " Lady Nightingale" a tale of what happened to him when he was a ploughman; secondly, a tale when he was a soldier.

I cannot give a better specimen of the prose, than the commencement of this latter tale.

"Most musical and prickte singing madame, for if I erre not, your ladeshipp was the first that brought up Prick Song, being nothing else but the fatall notes of your pittifull ravishment. I not contented long, a vice cleaving to all worldlings, with the little estate of an ant, but stuft with envie and ambition, as small as I was, desired to enter into the world againe, which I may rather tearine the upper hell, or FRIGIDE GEHENNA, the cold charitable hell, wherein are all kinds of divells too, as your gentle divell, your ordinary divell, and your gallant divell; and all these can chaunge their shape too: as today in cowardly white, to-morrow in politicke blacke, a thirde day in jealous yellow: for believe it, sweete ladye, there are divils of all colours: nevertheless, I, covetous of more change, leapt out of this little skin of an ant, and hung my