Volume I Part 52 (1/2)

PARSON.

Help, help, neighbour Prat, neighbour Prat, In the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, help me somewhat!

PRAT.

Nay, deal as thou canst with that elf, For why I have enough to do myself.

Alas! for pain I am almost dead; The red blood so runneth down about my head.

Nay, and thou canst, I pray thee help me.

PARSON.

Nay, by the ma.s.s, fellow, it will not be; I have more tow on my distaff than I can well spin; The cursed Friar doth the upper hand win.

FRIAR.

Will ye leave then, and let us in peace depart?

PARSON AND PRAT.

Yea, by our lady, even with all our heart.

FRIAR AND PARDONER.

Then adieu to the devil, till we come again.

PARSON AND PRAT.

And a mischief go with you both twain![182]

THE WORLD AND THE CHILD.

MR COLLIER'S PREFACE.

When the Rev. T.F. Dibdin a.s.serted (”Typographical Antiquities,” ii. 9.) that ”in the Drama there is no single work yet found, which bears the name of Winken de Worde as the printer of it,” he committed one of those singular over-sights of which very learned men have before been sometimes guilty. ”Hickscorner,” perhaps the most ancient printed dramatic piece in our language, and well-known to those who are at all acquainted with the history of our stage, was from his press, and his colophon is at its conclusion: ”Enprynted by me Wynkyn de Worde.” Mr Dibdin, in opposition to his own statement, inserts it among the works of that early professor of the typographic art.

The subsequent dramatic production is also from the types of Wynkyn de Worde, but it was not discovered in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, until after the appearance of the second volume of Mr Dibdin's new edition of Ames.[183]

[Yet a copy was in the ”Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica,” 1815, and in 1817 the piece was reprinted for the Roxburghe Club].

”Hickscorner” is without date, but ”The World and the Child” was printed in July 1522. Only one other copy of it is known, and it is here republished from a faithful transcript of the original.[184] As a specimen of our ancient moralities, it is of an earlier date, and in several respects more curious, than almost any other piece in the present collection. From a line in the epilogue, it might be inferred that it was performed before the king and his Court.

HERE BEGINNETH A PROPER NEW INTERLUDE OF THE WORLD AND THE CHILD, OTHERWISE CALLED MUNDUS ET INFANS, AND IT SHOWETH OF THE ESTATE OF CHILDHOOD AND MANHOOD.

MUNDUS. Sirs, cease of your saws what so befall, And look ye bow b.o.n.e.rly[185] to my bidding, For I am ruler of realms, I warn you all, And over all fodes[186] I am king: For I am king, and well known in these realms round, I have also palaces i-pight: I have steeds in stable stalwart and strong, Also streets and strands full strongly i-dight: For all the world[187] wide I wot well is my name, All riches readily it renneth in me, All pleasure worldly, both mirth and game.

Myself seemly in sale[188] I send with you to be, For I am the world, I warn you all, Prince of power and of plenty: He that cometh not, when I do him call, I shall him smite with poverty, For poverty I part[189] in many a place To them that will not obedient be.

I am a king in every case: Methinketh I am a G.o.d of grace, The flower of virtue followeth me!