A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 37

It is a plain case, whereon I mooted[111] in our Temple, and that was this: put case, there be three brethren, John a Nokes, John a Nash, and John a Stile. John a Nokes the elder, John a Nash the younger, and John a Stile the youngest of all. John a Nash the younger dieth without issue of his body lawfully begotten. Whether shall his lands ascend to John a Nokes the elder, or descend to John a Stile the youngest of all? The answer is, the lands do collaterally descend, not ascend.

RECORDER.

Very true; and for a proof hereof I will show you a place in Littleton which is very pregnant in this point.

ACTUS IV., SCAENA 2.

_Enter_ INGENIOSO, FUROR, PHANTASMA.

INGENIOSO.

I'll p.a.w.n my wits, that is, my revenues, my land, my money, and whatsoever I have, for I have nothing but my wit, that they are at hand.

Why, any sensible snout may wind Master Amoretto and his pomander, Master Recorder and his two neat's feet that wear no socks, Sir Raderic by his rammish complexion; _Olet Gorgonius hirc.u.m, sicut Lupus in fabula_. Furor, fire the touch-box of your wit: Phantasma, let your invention play tricks like an ape: begin thou, Furor, and open like a flap-mouthed hound: follow thou, Phantasma, like a lady's puppy: and as for me, let me alone; I'll come after, like a water-dog, that will shake them off when I have no use of them. My masters, the watchword is given.

Furor, discharge.

FUROR to SIR RADERIC.

The great projector of the thunderbolts, He that is wont to p.i.s.s whole clouds of rain Into the earth, vast gaping urinal, Which that one-ey'd subsizer of the sky, Dan Phoebus, empties by calidity; He and his townsmen planets brings to thee Most fatty lumps of earth's fecundity.[112]

SIR RADERIC.

Why, will this fellow's English break the Queen's peace?

I will not seem to regard him.

PHANTASMA _to_ AMORETTO.

[_Reads from a Horace, addressing himself_.]

_Mecaenas, atavis edite regibus, O, et praesidium et dulce decus meum, Dii faciant votis vela secunda tuis_.

INGENIOSO.

G.o.d save you, good Master Recorder, and good fortunes follow your deserts.

I think I have cursed him sufficiently in few words. [_Aside_.

SIR RADERIC.

What have we here? three begging soldiers?

Come you from Ostend or from Ireland?

PAGE.

_Cujum pecus? an Melibaei?_ I have vented all the Latin one man had.

PHANTASMA.

_Quid dicam amplius? domini similis os_.

AMORETTO'S PAGE.

Let him [not] alone, I pray thee. To him again: tickle him there!

PHANTASMA.

_Quam dispari domino dominaris?_

RECORDER.

Nay, that's plain in Littleton; for if that fee-simple and fee-tail be put together, it is called hotch-potch. Now, this word hotch-potch in English is a pudding; for in such a pudding is not commonly one thing only, but one thing with another.

AMORETTO.

I think I do remember this also at a mooting in our Temple. So then this hotch-potch seems a term of similitude?

FUROR to SIR RADERIC.

Great Capricornus, of thy head take keep: Good Virgo, watch, while that thy wors.h.i.+p sleep; And when thy swelling vents amain, Then Pisces be thy sporting chamberlain.

SIR RADERIC.

I think the devil hath sent some of his family to torment me.

AMORETTO.

There is tail-general and tail-special, and Littleton is very copious in that theme; for tail-general is when lands are given to a man and his heirs of his body begotten; tail-special is when lands are given to a man and to his wife, and to the heirs of their two bodies lawfully begotten; and that is called tail-special.

SIR RADERIC.

Very well; and for his oath I will give a distinction. There is a material oath and a formal oath; the formal oath may be broken, the material may not be broken: for mark you, sir, the law is to take place before the conscience, and therefore you may, using me your councillor, cast him in the suit. There wants nothing to be full meaning of this place.

PHANTASMA.

_Nihil hic nisi carmina desunt_.

INGENIOSO.

An excellent observation, in good faith. See how the old fox teacheth the young cub to worry a sheep; or rather sits himself, like an old goose, hatching the addle brain of Master Amoretto. There is no fool to the satin fool, the velvet fool, the perfumed fool; and therefore the witty tailors of this age put them under colour of kindness into a pair of cloth bags, where a voider will not serve the turn. And there is no knave to the barbarous knave, the moulting knave, the pleading knave.--What, ho! Master Recorder? Master _Noverint universi per presentes_,--not a word he, unless he feels it in his fist.

PHANTASMA.

_Mitto tibi merulas, cancros imitare legendo_.

SIR RADERIC _to_ FUROR.

Fellow, what art thou, that art so bold?

FUROR.

I am the b.a.s.t.a.r.d of great Mercury, Got on Thalia when she was asleep: My gaudy grandsire, great Apollo hight,[113]

Born was, I hear, but that my luck was ill, To all the land upon the forked hill.

PHANTASMA.

_O crudelis Alexi, nil mea carmina curas?

Nil nostri miserere? mori me denique coges?_

SIR RADERIC _to_ PAGE.

If you use them thus, my master is a justice of peace, and will send you all to the gallows.

PHANTASMA.

_Hei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo?_[114]

INGENIOSO.

Good Master Recorder, let me retain you this term--for my cause, good Master Recorder.

RECORDER.

I am retained already on the contrary part. I have taken my fee; begone, begone.

INGENIOSO.

It's his meaning I should come off.[115] Why, here is the true style of a villain, the true faith of a lawyer; it is usual with them to be bribed on the one side, and then to take a fee of the other; to plead weakly, and to be bribed and rebribed on the one side, then to be fee'd and refee'd of the other; till at length, _per varios casus_, by putting the case so often, they make their clients so lank, that they may case them up in a comb-case, and pack them home from the term, as though they had travelled to London to sell their horse only; and, having lost their fleeces, live afterward like poor shorn sheep.