Page:The Works of Ben Jonson - Gifford - Volume 6.djvu/250

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240

A TALE OF A TUB.

Med. Then justice Bramble, with sir Hugh the canon:
And the bride's parents, which I will not stan' on,
Or the lost Clay, with the recovered Miles:
Who thus unto his master him reconciles.
On the 'squire's word, to pay old Turse his club,
[Exeunt.And so doth end our Tale here of a Tub.

THE EPILOGUE.

By 'Squire Tub.

This tale of me, the Tub of Totten-Court,
A poet first invented for your sport.
Wherein the fortune of most empty tubs,
Rolling in love, are shewn; and with what rubs
We are commonly encountered: when the wit
Of the whole hundred so opposeth it.
Our petty Canon's forked plot in chief,
Sly justice' arts, with the high constable's brief
And brag commands; my lady mother's care,
And her Pol Martin's fortune; with the rare
Fate of poor John, thus tumbled in the cask;
Got In-and-In to give it you in a masque:
That you be pleased, who come to see a play,
With those that hear, and mark not what we say.
Wherein the poet's fortune is, I fear,
Still to be early up, but ne'er the near.

^[1]

↑ "When this play was written or acted, (if it was ever acted) there is nothing that will assist us to determine."—This was written before the discovery of sir Henry Herbert's official papers, in which two distinct notices of this play appear.—"Whatever may be its faults or beauties, they are equally passed over in silence by contemporary writers: no one hath either praised or censured it. We may yet suppose it to be one of those

[1] "When this play was written or acted, (if it was ever acted) there is nothing that will assist us to determine."—This was written before the discovery of sir Henry Herbert's official papers, in which two distinct notices of this play appear.—"Whatever may be its faults or beauties, they are equally passed over in silence by contemporary writers: no one hath either praised or censured it. We may yet suppose it to be one of those

[1]