4CockbrainAye, marry†gg177 a common intensifier or expletive, a contraction of 'By Mary', 'By Mary of God' , sir! This is something like!n7321 Cockbrain's exuberant exclamation gives the audience the impression that we are hearing part of an exchange that has begun before the play opens. The actor must choose how anxious to make Cockbrain appear already. Cockbrain seems to keep anticipating a response from Rooksbill betraying some enthusiasm, however little; instead he is greeted with silence, an air of worried abstraction, and a relentless attention to the practicalities of investment and returns. These appear like buildings! Here’s architecture*n211 See the Introduction for a fuller discussion of this topic. The first English usage noted in the OED is in the title of John Shute's The First and Chief Grounds of Architecture (1563). The status of building design arts and of the words 'architecture' and 'architect' is changing rapidly during this period. The principal known house designer of the previous century, Robert Smythson, was never termed 'architect' before the twentieth century, but Covent Garden’s surveyor, Inigo Jones (1573-1652), clearly makes claims for his art and his own professional standing, basing them on connections with classical architecture (through Vitruvius [c.75 BCE-15 BCE] in particular) and modern European architectural practice and theory (particularly through Andrea Palladio (1508-1580), but with Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) as the first modern to gain this status). Cockbrain is playing, somewhat naïvely, on the new, fashionable enthusiasm for architecture as he seeks to keep Rooksbill patient at the lack of financial return on his building investments. See Mark Girouard, Robert Smythson and the Elizabethan Country House (London: Yale U.P. 1986); Christy Anderson, Inigo Jones and the Classical Tradition (Cambridge: CUP, 2006); Giles Worsley, Inigo Jones and the European Classical Tradition (London: Yale University press, 2007). expressed*n212 Meaning to utter, but in The Weeding of Covent Garden here with a particular heightened emphasis due to a connection with works of art and their assertions of importance, and perhaps with the emblematic, as in rebuses and symbolic forms in which the visual rivals the verbal in ability to communicate elevated and complex ideas. The subterranean metaphor of 'pressing' connects with printing and stamping, as in 'impresa' and 'impression'. For the range of connected meanings and connotations, see OED express v1, 5 a and b; 6; and 7 and the quotations therein. indeed! It is a most sightly situation, and fit for gentry and nobility.*n213 Although higher-class residents were soon to be found in Covent Garden, particularly in the houses surrounding the Piazza (the earl of Stirling dates a letter to the secretary of state, Sir Francis Windebank, from 'Covent Garden, this Monday' in 1632 [Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1631-1633 (Longman, Green, 1862): 483 59]), fears over the likely social composition of the newly-developing areas between the City, Whitehall, and Westminster can be traced through the records of the Privy Council and elsewhere. From the outset taverns and inns were established, contrary to the terms of the original license to the earl of Bedford and contrary to his agreements with builders and landlords. Neither the royal authorities nor Bedford appear to have been able to control development and use, and the records imply that the magistracy charged with enforcing the terms of the licence and the leases dragged their feet. They were often drawn from the commercial class and knew that demand for entertainment was strong and therefore profits were to be made. The royal authorities sought to restrict the popularity of unlicensed taverns and inns by forbidding the serving of food. A statute of 1612 had limited the number of taverns in London to 40. On 12 July 1633 Sir Hugh Hammersley complained of the number of taverns, and Secretary Windebank’s notes show the Privy Council discussing the matter five days later (Calendar of State Papers vol. CCXLIII, p. 144) in the presence of the city alderman and vintners and ordering the Lord Mayor and aldermen for the city and the local Justices of the Peace for the suburbs to report within a month on the number of taverns operating. Covent Garden is specially mentioned. The Council ordered that the taverns cease serving food. On 2 August the Council received a report concerning 'taverns and victualling houses in Convent Garden, and a little lane adjoining lately called Russell Street'; in Covent Garden alone there were eight taverns and fifteen alehouses, and in Russell Street another 5 alehouses. The alehouses had been licenced by the Clerk of Westminster (Calendar of State Papers vol. CCXLIV, pp. 168-9). The Council ordered a radical reduction, but on 29 August the Justices of the Peace reported that many of the necessary officials were away from London and pleaded to be allowed to delay action until after Michaelmas. The Council notes in October 1633 that the matter remained 'unperfected' and ordered the Justices of the Peace 'to suppress all taverns in Covent Garden except two, all alehouse keepers except four, and all cooks except three' (Calendar of State Papers vol. CCXLVIII, p. 266). But the Covent Garden Constable, Robert Cooke, reported on 21 December that 'the vintners of Covent Garden having been commanded by the justices of the peace to forbear venting wines, and to pull down their bushes, do notwithstanding keep up their bushes and continue to sell wines' (Calendar of State Papers Vol. CCLIV, p. 335). Part of the problem with enforcement was the practice of sub-letting: on 13 February 1634 'Thomas Jones, master of his Majesty’s tents' complained to the Council that 'Anthony Paul has taken a house adjoining petitioner’s in Drury Lane, and has let the same to Robert Batty, who intends to erect it into a tavern, to the great prejudice of petitioner, and other neighbours being men of eminent quality'. He pleaded with the Council 'not to give permission for the setting up of the said tavern'. The Council agreed and commanded Sir Henry Spiller and Lawrence Whitaker, Justices of the Peace for Middlesex, to enforce the order (Calendar of State Papers vol. CCLX, p. 462).

5RooksbillWhen it is all finished, doubtless it will be handsome.

6CockbrainIt will be glorious! And yond magnificent piece*n283 'Piece' and 'Peace' are going to be words used constantly and with various meanings throughout the play. Few contemporary lexicons define the word, but it ranges from the almost neutral 'a small bit', 'an item', to the heavily inflected, as in the monetary (a coin) and the commercial, something traded, whether it is a commodity, some real property, or a prostitute. All these meanings are active, frequently used, and connected in this play. Here it is important to note that the characters are not in the Piazza: 'yond magnificent piece'. This is not a play that takes place in the glamorous centre of the development but in the more dubious and contested surrounding streets. , the Piazzo, will excel that at Venice*n284 Brome shares his contemporaries’ fascination with Venice; no doubt the fundamental example for him is Jonson’s Volpone, but English city comedies frequently draw on knowledge and myths of Venice as they explore the new world of the London they inhabit. See Jean Remble, The Apotheosis of Venice in the Elizabethan Imagination (Tromso: University of Tromso, 1995). Venice in this play is invoked as the height of fashion, but also as a city defined and structured by trade and commerce, not by the unchanging values of a traditional, stable, hierarchical society; and defined by an equivalent sexual transgressiveness, particularly in courtesanship and prostitution. See also Brome's thorough and complex presentation of the city in The Novella.
In The Weeding of Covent Garden Cockbrain's enthusiastic comparison of the new Piazza to that at Venice is likely to be embarrassing. Cockbrain casts himself as a reformer of public and private morals; yet he admiringly compares the new development to what his contemporaries viewed as the very sink of (exciting) depravity. , by hearsay – I ne’er travelled*n285 Cockbrain is the butt of a joke about provincialness and the affectedness of the English about foreign travel, a common theatrical target in the period (see Don Armado in Love’s Labours Lost, for instance, and Sir Politic Would-Be in Volpone). See Clare Howard, English Travellers of the Renaissance (1914); John Stoye, English Travelers Abroad, 1604-1667: Their Influence on English Society and Politics (1952). *n4573 (I ne'er travelled). The parentheses indicate to an actor that this is an interruption of thought, either an aside or perhaps an embarrassed admission by Cockbrain. . A hearty blessing on their brains, honours, and wealths, that are projectors*n286 OED: 'One who forms a project, who plans or designs some enterprise or undertaking; a founder.' But also perhaps with the pejorative sense much used in contemporary satires: 1. b. 'In invidious use: A schemer; one who lives by his wits; a promoter of bubble companies; a speculator, a cheat.' See Jonson, The Devil is an Ass, Act 1, Scene 7: FITZ-DOTTREL: 'But what is a Projector? I would conceive. / INGINE: Why, one, Sir, that projects / Ways to enrich Men, or to make 'em great, / By Suits, by Marriages, by Undertakings: / According as he sees they humour it'. , furtherers, and performers of such great works. And now I come to you, Master Rooksbill: I like your row†gg1623 a number of houses standing in a line; a street (esp. a narrow one) formed by two continuous lines of houses (OED 4a) of houses most incomparably. Your money never shone so on your counting-boards*n288 OED counting, vbl. n, 3.. Cockbrain’s allusion confirms that Rooksbill is a money-man, as his name implies. as in those structures.

7RooksbillI have piled up a leash*n289 three. OED Leash n. 2 'A set of three; originally in Sporting language, used of hounds, hawks, foxes, hares, deer, etc.; hence gen.'. So, he has spent £3,000. But there’s probably also a pun on 'leases', referring to the innovative property ownership and financing of Covent Garden. of thousand pounds in walls and windows there.n7322 This opening scene is crucial for the creation of a fictional geography for the play: the audience inside the theatre must imagine themselves outside in the new development of Covent Garden, still being built. Robert Lister as Rooksbill achieved this sense of place through his gaze and intense and worried evaluation of the imagined row of houses into which he has sunk a fortune.

8CockbrainIt will all come again with large increase*n290 Seeking to ingratiate himself with Rooksbill, Cockbrain resorts to vaguely religious diction; cp. 2 Corinthians 9, v. 10 in particular. However, Crosswill will use this word in Act 2, Scene 2 ('All in good time, she may increase in virtue'[CG 2.2.speech335]) in reference to Rooksbill’s daughter Lucy and her reluctance to enter the morally-questionable realm of the tavern. Crosswill is acutely conscious both of Lucy’s sexual attractiveness ('your fair daughter, welcome pretty one. Trust me, a pretty one indeed'[CG 2.2.speech333]) and his own lack of grandchildren; the 'increase' he has in mind appears to be that of pregnancy. Hearing this Leontes-like enthusiasm for a woman young enough to be his daughter and soon to be his daughter-in-law, the audience may well harken back to Cockbrain’s use of the word, associating the financial with the dynastic and procreative. . And better is your money thus let out†gg1624 OED to lend (money) at interest(?obs); to put out to hire; to distribute among several tenants or hirers on red and white, than upon black and white*n291 The characteristic building material of the London area is brick, because of the scarcity and expense of good building stone. For grandeur, brick buildings often had stone dressings to windows, doors, and other features. 'Black and white' refers to documents, probably here related to finance (see 'counting-boards'). Compare Much Ado About Nothing, Act 5, Scene 1: DOGBERRY 'Moreover, sir, which indeed is not under white and black, this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass.' There may also be reference to gambling. OED records 'black and white' referring to wood-framed buildings only from the nineteenth century onwards; leaving the beams exposed and painting them black is largely a modern phenomenon. , I say. You cannot think how I am taken with that row! How even and straight they are!*n292 Cockbrain is struggling to enthuse Rooksbill and returns to praising his 'row'. Sceptical observers frequently showed a faint disdain for mere straightness as an aesthetic quality, best illustrated decades later by Sir William Temple in The Gardens of Epicurus (1692). Temple has an imaginary Eastern observer mock the simplicity of European neo-classical aesthetics: 'Among us, the beauty of building and planting is placed chiefly in some certain proportions, symmetries, or uniformities; our walks and our trees ranged so as to answer one another, and at exact distances. The Chinese scorn this way of planting, and say, a boy, that can tell an hundred, may plant walks of trees in straight lines, and over-against one another, and to what length and extent he pleases' (p. 131). And so are all indeed. The surveyor*n293 No-one was in any doubt as to who the Surveyor was: Inigo Jones. Putting such enthusiastic praise in the mouth of Cockbrain, the man who gets almost everything wrong in the play, suggests that Brome’s audience would respond with a wry, ironic scepticism to such effusive praise of Jones’s essentially foreign aesthetic. This play is roughly contemporary with the final eruption of the great quarrel between Ben Jonson, Brome's former master, and Inigo Jones, over precedence in the creation of the court masques, occasioned by the printing of Love's Triumph though Calliopolis in 1631. The perceived slight was the basis of Jonson's final outburst of antagonism, the masque 'Love's Welcome at Bolsover' (1634). See D.J. Gordon, 'Poet and Architect: The Intellectual Setting of the Quarrel between Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones' Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 12 (1949), 152-178, esp. p. 163. , what e’er he was*n4574 (what e'er he was). The parentheses are used in the printed text as a typographical sign to the actor that the phrase is to be spoken as an afterthought or aside. , has manifested himself the master of his great art. How he has wedded strength to beauty; state to uniformity; commodiousness with perspicuity!n294 Cockbrain’s parallel phrases are too easy; he sounds imitative and superficial. This became very apparent when the actors played Rooksbill as uninterested and inattentive and Cockbrain as increasingly desperate . Cockbrain seems driven more and more into a rhetorical style that is more suited for public advocacy: not subtle and not, in these circumstances, persuasive.
Brome is probably parodying fashionable architectural speech of the day and maybe even the proclamations permitting the development. Duggan (2000) quotes a document dated 3 May 1629, a certificate from William Laud and the incumbent of St Martin-in-the-Fields, permitting the building of the church and supporting the development proposed by Bedford: 'And in respect thereof he hath humbly besought us for our leave and licence to build the residue of the said field called Covent garden with uniform houses and buildings according to the form and proportion in our said proclamation expressed' (p. 141; Alnwick, Box 1, Envelope 2). This document is a draft and the signed and sealed version omits the material about the church. Nonetheless, it demonstrates the diction in use in connection with the development; incidentally, it confirms that, far from being at loggerheads with Laud and the local incumbent, Bedford was seizing the opportunity offered by their need to relieve overcrowding in St Martin-in-the-Field and thus mutual desire to develop parts of his Covent Garden estates. It also confirms the architectural ambitions of Laud and the Court. All, all as ’t should be!

9RooksbillIf all were as well tenanted and inhabited by worthy persons.*n214 Rooksbill speaks to this point in single sentence, single clause, curt, and grumpy response, expressing scepticism about the success of the development, particularly in its ability to attract a genteel clientele. Previous readers have suggested that Rooksbill may represent Charles I or, as Martin Butler suggests, the king’s Surveyor, Inigo Jones. But recent discussions of the development of the Bedford estates contradict the old assumption that Charles and Jones opposed the development; rather, they were prime movers and had dominant roles is design and architecture. Rooksbill has no interest in the architecture; his focus is solely on the capital he has committed and the revenue he hopes will come his way. Nor is Rooksbill likely to represent the earl of Bedford. A shrewd businessman and investor, Bedford knew exactly what he was doing, and he was unimpeachably aristocratic, whereas Crosswill denigrates the Rooksbill family as commercial City folk. Rooksbill is a speculative financier and builder, and the place to look for him is in the list of those who gained subordinate permissions from Bedford to build (see Calendar of State Papers CCCCVIII, p. 61).

10CockbrainPhew; that will follow. What new plantation*n295 Cockbrain associates the creation of the new district on hitherto undeveloped land with the rich and diverse rhetoric of plantations, a word that was applied to farming and woodland management, to the insertion of new populations in inhabited areas (particularly by this date the Protestant populations inserted in Ireland), and to the new colonies in North America, particularly topical at this date as a result of the increasing success of the Virginia colony and the Great Migration of disaffected Puritans to New England. Cockbrain casts a glow of adventure and entrepreneurship over the Covent Garden speculations. was ever peopled with the better sort at first? Nay, commonly the lewdest blades†gg649 smart, fashionable young men, so called from the swords or rapiers they carried as signs of their prowess (although such a reference to gallants was often familiarly laudatory, just as frequently it was contemptuous) and naughty-packs†gg1626 either 'a promiscuous or licentious woman; a prostitute' or 'an immoral or promiscuous man' (OED 11a) are either necessitated to ’em, or else do prove the most forward venturers.†gg1627 'one who ventures, in various senses; an adventurer'; but also, continuing the reference to the illicit sex trade, 'a strumpet or prostitute' (OED 1 and 3) *n298 Cockbrain is reassuring Rooksbill that, though the first inhabitants may be immoral and low-class, they are the ones needed to create the dynamism that will cause the plantation to succeed. The North American plantation he has in mind is more likely to be Virginia than Massachusetts. Is not lime and hair*n299 Cockbrain uses the analogy of building materials: the most base and crude ingredients are necessarily used even in the finest buildings. the first in all your foundations*n300 The earl of Bedford’s problems in the development of his London estates had much to do with the issue of 'foundations' as expressed in the royal Proclamations regulating building. Unless exempted and otherwise licenced, construction was supposed to take place only on existing foundations, a provision ignored from the outset by those to whom Bedford leased the land. On 10 January 1631 the king instructed the Attorney General, Sir Robert Heath, to 'To prepare a licence to Francis Earl of Bedford, to build upon the premises called Covent Garden and Long Acre, with a pardon to the Earl, and such persons as he shall name, for offences committed against the proclamations for restraint of building upon new foundation' Calendar of State Papers vol. CLXXXII, p. 479. ? Do we not soil or dung our lands, before we sow or plant anything that’s good in ’em? And do not weeds creep up first in all gardens? And why not then in this? Which never was a garden until now; and which will be the garden of gardens*n301 Cockbrain invokes the pervasive and popular topic of the Garden of Eden with its wide range of connections and associations in early modern culture (see John Prest, The Garden of Eden : The Botanic Garden and the Re-creation of Paradise (London: Yale University Press, 1981) and Michael Leslie and Timothy Raylor, eds., Culture and Cultivation in Early Modern England: Writing and the Land (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992). In this period 'improvement' was often represented as godly, man’s exploitation of his world and environment being associated with God’s creating action. Cockbrain is again casting about for reasons and a rhetoric that will reassure Rooksbill and contain the latter's impatience, but his enthusiasm leads him into a manifest absurdity: contrary to what he asserts, Covent Garden up to this point has been a garden (hence the name) and is decisively in the process of ceasing to be so. , I foresee ’t. And for the weeds in it, let me alone for the weeding of them out. And so as my reverend ancestor Justice Adam Overdo*n302 Cockbrain and his creator Brome both declare their allegiance and source of influence here, Cockbrain in declaring that he aims to imitate Justice Overdo and Brome in flagging his indebtedness to Jonson and, here, specifically to Bartholomew Fair (2.1). Overdo is introduced with a monologue which begins, 'Well, in Justice' name, and the King's, and for the Commonwealth!' The 1659 printing of The Weeding of Covent Garden italicizes as quotation only 'Well, in Justice' name, and the King's'; the rest of Overdo's phrase is also quoted by Cockbrain, however.
Cockbrain adapts the phrase, however, substituting 'Heaven' for 'Justice', perhaps combining the social order motives of Overdo with the Puritan concern for morality expressed most obviously by Zeal-of-the-Land Busy in Jonson's play. was wont to say, “In Heaven’s name and the King’s”, and for the good of the commonwealth*n1562 Cockbrain's motive is social and not necessarily indicative of puritanism or a militant Protestantism. London and other major early-modern European cities had long traditions of close social regulation: 'The origins of this intense, self-imposed registration and watch on inhabitants go back a long way in European history. They were not, as one might suppose, a creation of Puritan society, although theocratic presbyterian regulation would attempt to make them more all-embracing' (Valerie Pearl, 'Change and Stability in Seventeenth-Century London' London Journal 5 (1979) 3-34; p. 17). , I will go about it*n303 Cockbrain is wrong about his own involvement as principal agent in setting things right; it turns out to be his son Anthony who has the greater role, though even he cedes primacy to Mihil in the end, before Crosswill assumes the role of spokesman for the play. But Cockbrain is right that urban development often follows a cycle in which the developer has to accept an unwanted social diversity among first inhabitants, with polite society later driving out the impolite. In the case of Covent Garden, the printed text's second prologue, probably spoken at a revival of the play at the beginning of the 1640s, triumphantly confirms that by the 1640s the area had achieved respectability: 'Tis not amiss ere we begin our play, /T' intreat you, that you take the same survey / Into your fancy, as our poet took, / Of Covent Garden, when he wrote his Book, / Some ten years since, when it was grown with weeds, / Not set, as now it is, with noble seeds, / Which make the Garden glorious.' But the achievement was short-lived: thirty years later Covent Garden had reverted to a more socially mixed and less salubrious state, a character the area has retained over the centuries. .

11RooksbillI would†gg24 wish (that/to) a few more of the worshipful†gg1628 Justices of the Peace; as an honorific title for persons or bodies of distinguished rank or importance: formerly used very widely, but now restricted to the livery companies and freemasons' lodges and their masters; "Right worshipful" is applied to mayors (OED 3a) hereabouts*n1561 Covent Garden lay outside the boundaries of the City of London, but that did not mean that it was without regulation or structure of authority. In fact the reverse may have been the case: 'Middlesex was in some respects an intensely governed county. The privy council regularly intervened in its policing, appointing special commissions to deal with vagrancy, new building, and plague control; there were between eight and ten gaol deliveries per annum (in contrast to the more usual two); regulative offences could be presented not only at quarter sessions but unusually in the court of king’s bench; from 1619 there were additional sessions for Westminster supplementing the work of the local court of burgesses. The density of regulative institutions may have ensured that prosecution rates were higher than within the traditional city' (Ian W. Archer, 'The Government of London, 1500-1650' The London Journal 26 (2001) 19-28; p. 26. The play represents the process whereby a new neighbourhood, at first without a structured system of regulation and enforcement, is being brought within the systems designed to create and preserve civil society. , whether they be in commission†gg545 the magistracy, Justices of the Peace; Commission of the Peace: the authority given under the Great Seal empowering certain persons to act as Justices of the Peace in a specified district; hence on the commission: having the office of Justice of the Peace (OED 2c) *n305 Rooksbill’s scepticism is apt: the records of the Council suggest that the Justices of the Peace, who often had a financial interest, were dragging their feet (see Introduction). or not*n4575 (whether they be in commission or not). Again, the parentheses opf the 1659 printing cannot be spoken but are a typographical sign to the actor. , were as well minded that way as you are, sir; we should then have all sweet and clean, and that quickly too.

12CockbrainI have thought upon a way for’t, Master Rooksbill, and I will pursue it; viz.†gg1387 videlicet adv., meaning that is to say; namely: used to introduce an amplification, or more precise or explicit explanation , to find out all the enormities*n307 Cockbrian’s word-choice again echoes Jonson’s Overdo in Bartholomew Fair (Act 5, scene 6): OVERDO 'Now to my enormities! Look upon me, O London! and see me, O Smithfield! the example of Justice, and Mirror of Magistrates; the true top of formality, and scourge of enormity. Hearken unto my labours and but observe my discoveries; and compare Hercules with me, if thou dar'st, of old; or Columbus, or Magellan, or our countryman Drake of later times. Stand forth you weeds of enormity and spread.' Like Overdo, Cockbrain will disguise himself, and both figures are probably influenced by the example of one of early-modern London's reforming Lord Mayors, Thomas Middleton (term: 1614): 'In 1614 the Lord Mayor himself announced with satisfaction that he had made a personal visit in heavy disguise to a number of houses which the reports of his spies indicated were being used as brothels.' Robert Ashton, 'Popular Entertainment and Social Control in Later Elizabethan and Early Stuart London', London Journal 9 (1983) 3-19; p. 15. , yet be myself unspied, whereby I will tread out the spark of impiety, whilst it is yet a spark and not a flame; and break the egg of a mischief, whilst it is yet an egg and not a cockatrice.†gg1629 'a serpent, identified with the BASILISK, fabulously said to kill by its mere glance, and to be hatched from a cock's egg'; 'cockatrice' is used prominently in the Bible and maybe has this connotation in particular in this period; but it is also used as a term for prostitute (see Dekker, Lanthorne and Candlelight (1608), 3.267: 'the Cockatrice that hatcheth all these eggs of evils' (Williams) and The Guls Horne-book (1609): 'whether that young conjurer (in Hogsheads) at midnight, keeps a gelding now and then to visit his Cockatrice' (p. 33) Then doubt not of worthy tenants for your houses, Master Rooksbill*n309 Cockbrain is reassuring Rooksbill that an alliance between developers and the magistracy will achieve a successful social and thus financial result. .

13RooksbillI hope, sir, your best furtherance.

14CockbrainI had a letter but last night from a worthy friend, a West Country gentleman*n310 Cockbrain’s description of Crosswill is neutral; perhaps the neutrality is an index of how unsure Cockbrain is concerning Rooksbill’s response to news that his new tenant is from outside the known world of urban sophistication. Cockbrain reassures Rooksbill that Crosswill is a 'gentleman' but, as the play will suggest through the class and status instabilities of the new social world of Covent Garden, 'gentleman' is an increasingly contested condition in this period. , that is now coming up with his family to live in town†gg1630 'without article, after prepositions and verbs, as in, out of, to town, to leave town, etc.: i.e. the particular town under consideration, or that in or near which the speaker is at the moment; the town with which one has to do, the market-town, the chief town of the district or province, the capital; in England since c 1700 spec. said of London' (OED 4b) *n312 Though the OED doubts that the usage to mean London specifically does not operate predominantly before 1700, in this play it seems to be assumed. here; and [his]*n3111 1659: and desire desire is to inhabit in these buildings. He was to lie at Hammersmith*n313 Sleep the night at Hammersmith. Hammersmith at this time was a village at some distance from London, about 6 miles from the boundaries of the city. last night and requested an early meeting of me this morning here, to assist him in the taking of a house. It is my business hither; for he could never do ’t himself. He has the oddest, touchy, wrangling humour – but in a harmless way, for he hurts nobody, and pleases himself in it. His children have all the trouble of it, that do anger him in obeying him sometimes. You will know him anon. I mean, he shall be your tenant. And luckily he comes.

15Crosswill   (to GABRIEL and KATHERINE)*n2179 Stage direction moved from the end of Crosswill's speech    It is not enough you tell me of obedience. Or that you are obedient. But I will be obeyed in my own way. Do you see*n314 This is the first use of one of Crosswill’s characteristic phrases. His son Mihil will echo him. –?

16CockbrainMy noble friend Master Crosswill, right happily met.

17CrosswillYour troublesome friend, Master Cockbrain.

18CockbrainNo trouble at all, sir, though I have prevented†gg1631 came before, anticipated yours in finding a fit house for you.

19CrosswillYou ha’ not, ha’ you, ha?*n316 Crosswill’s other characteristic expression: 'ha!', and 'ha' you, ha?'

20CockbrainActum est*n436 Latin: It is done. , Master Crosswill. But civility pardon me, is not this your daughter?[COCKBRAIN and KATHERINE] kiss [in greeting].*n3247 1659: Kisse. This is set in the right margin.

21CrosswillAll the she-things I have; and would I were well rid of her too.*n317 This is a motherless play. Crosswill’s boorish 'she-things' and expressed desire to be rid of his daughter looks very like a defensive overcompensation.

22CockbrainSweet Mistress Katherine, welcome – Master Gabriel, I take it?

23GabrielGabriel Crosswill is my name.

24CockbrainBut where’s your younger son*n1565 Mihil turns out to be the character who guides the plot to a comedic conclusion: achieving his own marriage to Lucy, daughter of the wealthy Rooksbill; Anthony's marriage to Mihil's sister Katharine, despite the previous opposition of both fathers; his cousin Dorcas's marriage to her seducer Nick; and the recovery of his elder brother Gabriel from the madness of religious zealotry. Mihil achieves this through his wits alone: he is a younger brother, at best provided with an education in the Inns of Court. Throughout the play Mihil's words and actions are shaped by the plight of the younger brother in a gentry family. , Mihil? There’s a spark!†gg1290 young foppish man (gallant) (OED n2. 2a) *n346 Here the term seems complimentary, an elegant and vigorous young man-about-town. But Cockbrain has already used the word to indicate the first showings of sin or vice that will engulf all if it is not immediately extinguished: 'I will tread out the spark of impiety, whilest it is yet a spark and not a flame'.

25CrosswillA spark? A dunce I fear by this time, like his brother Sheepshead†gg1632 'A fool, simpleton; also as adj., stupid.' (OED 2a) there.

26GabrielGabriel is my proper name.

27CrosswillI have not seen him this twelve-month, since I chambered him a student here in town.*n348 Chambered OED chamber v5 'To lodge in, or as in, a chamber'. Here, however, there is a reference to residence in the Inns of Court, for Mihil has been sent to London to learn the law: OED chamber n 3. pl. a. 'Rooms forming part of a house or tenement arranged for occupation by single persons; esp. rooms in the Inns of Court occupied by lawyers; also, sets of rooms in a block of buildings for offices, etc.'. 'Chambers' is still used in this sense.

28CockbrainIn town, and I not know it?

29CrosswillHe knows not yet of my coming neither, nor shall not till I steal upon him;*n349 Like Cockbrain, Crosswill is a father all for subterfuge. But in both cases the fathers overestimate their cleverness and are either exposed or easily manipulated by their offspring. and if I find him mopish†gg1633 'given to or characterized by moping', looking melancholy all the time (OED 2) like his brother, I know what I will do.

30CockbrainHave you not heard from him lately?

31CrosswillYes, often by his letters; less I could read, more comfort in ’em.*n351 Crosswill means, the more letters, the less I could get comfort from them. His son's apparent religious zeal renders him uneasy as being not at all what a gentleman's son should display when at the Inns of Court. I fear he’s turned precisian,†gg1634 'one who is rigidly precise or punctilious in the observance of rules or forms'; 'in the 16th and 17th centuries synonymous with Puritan' (OED) for all his epistles end with “Amen”; and the matter of ’em is such as if he could teach me to ask him blessing.

32RooksbillA comfortable hearing of a young man.

33CrosswillIs it so, sir? But I’ll new mould him if it be so – I’ll tell you, Master Cockbrain: never was such a father so crossed in his children. They will not obey me in my way. I grant, they do things that other fathers would rejoice at. But I will be obeyed in my own way, d’ ye see? Here’s my eldest son. Mark how he stands, as if he had learned a posture*n3112 1659. McClure notes that Pearson follows some copies in appearing to read 'à posture', but the accent seems to be a stray mark. McClure amends to read 'of posture', but this is awkward and unnecessary: Gabriel has learned a particular way of carrying himself, that characteristic of the hot protestant. at Knightsbridge spittle*n11652 The Knightsbridge Hospital, probably dating from the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, served lepers, the destitute, and the simple-minded; and it was transferred to the control of St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1549. as we came along while-ere.†gg1635 a while before He was not only born without wit, but with an obstinate resolution never to have any. I mean, such wit as might become a gentleman.

34CockbrainWas that resolution born in him, think you?*n355 Cockbrain’s question turns out to be shrewd and Crosswill’s response shows how little he knows his children. Gabriel is putting on a display of Puritanism to punish his father.

35CrosswillIt could never grow up in him still as it does else. When I would have him take his horse, and follow the dogs, and associate [with] gentlemen*n3240 1659: associate Gentlemen , in hawking, hunting, or suchlike exercises, he’ll run you a-foot†gg1636 on foot five mile another way, to meet the brethren of the separation,*n357 Separatists had been a feature of English Protestantism since the middle of Elizabeth I’s reign, rejecting the structure of authority in the Church of England and asserting instead the autonomous authority of each congregation. Subject to continual attempts to repress them and return their members to the state Church, with its episcopal hierarchy and ultimate control by the central government, many Separatists emigrated, legally and illegally, to the Low Countries and the German Protestant states, and then to some of the North American colonies, notably including the Mayflower pilgrims who founded the Plymouth Plantation. Many also remained in England, however, chiefly in London, East Anglia, and the South East. at such exercises*n358 Exercise, in the sense of a religious meeting or rite, was particularly applied to the meetings of Puritan congregations (OED exercise n.10). Crosswill is playing on the sense of physical exercise too (OED exercise n.7), continuing with the theme of Gabriel’s pedestrian exploits a few lines earlier. as I never sent him to, I am sure*n4576 (I am sure) , on worky days†gg1637 work days (OED workaday) . And whereas most gentlemen run into other men’s books*n360 Incur debt, and so are found in lists of debtors. , in hands that they care not who reads, he has a book of his own short-writing*n361 Shorthand. Known throughout the history of writing, shorthand was popularised in England first in Timothy Bright's Characterie. An Arte of Shorte, Swifte, and Secrete Writing by Character (1588). In that title speed is matched with secrecy as the advantage of the system. Bright received a patent of monopoly from Elizabeth I, but some months before that expired a new system was proposed by John Willis. Unlike Bright’s system, where symbols stood for whole words, Willis’s The Art of Stenographie (1602) was phonetic and alphabetic. Published anonymously, The Art of Stenographie was popular and went through at least 14 editions by 1648. Willis’s system was joined by that of Thomas Shelton, Short-Writing (1626), used by Samuel Pepys and Thomas Jefferson, for instance. The Bohemian educational reformer Jan Amos Komenski (Comenius), visiting London in 1642, was startled to see more than half the congregation at a sermon taking notes in shorthand. See Valerie Pearl, 'Change and Stability in Seventeenth-century London', London Journal, 5 (1979) 3-34. in his pocket, of such stuff as is fit for no man’s reading indeed but his own.

36GabrielSurely, sir –

37CrosswillSure, you are an ass. Hold your tongue.

38GabrielYou are my father.

39Rooksbill   [Aside]   What comfort should I have, were my son such?

40CrosswillAnd he has done nothing*n3241 has nothing but hanged the head, as you see now, ever since holiday sports were cried up in the country.*n362 The issue of country pastimes was one of the most contested in the culture wars of the early seventeenth century. More militant, Calvinist protestants had increasingly sought to suppress sports and pastimes in the later Elizabethan period, judging them to be either Popish or pagan and conducive to immorality. Such country pastimes and games included village football, Maypoles and other May Day festivities, and the Whitsun and other Ales used to raise money for local charities and other causes. However, James I vigorously defended them in his Declaration of 1618. Originally ordered to be read from every pulpit, James backed down in the face of considerable opposition within the Church. Charles I reissued the Declaration as the Book of Sports in 1633, again causing considerable resentment and hostility. Kaufmann notes (p. 73) that 'The King's Declaration was issued on October 10, 1633. The play is probably not that late.' He documents disputes among various authorities within the Caroline regime that antedate the Declaration and surmises that the play is responding to popular knowledge of these.
In 1643, after the outbreak of the Civil Wars, the Book of Sports was condemned to be burned, and the triumphant Parliamentary regime suppressed country pastimes. One of the first acts of the restored monarchy in 1660 was to erect a huge Maypole in London. See Leah S. Marcus, The Politics of Mirth: Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Marvell, and the Defense of Old Holiday Pastimes (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986) and Ronald Hutton, The Rise and Fall of Merry England: The Ritual Year, 1400-1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). And but for that, and to talk with some of the silenced pastors*n363 Ministers banned from preaching by the central government and ecclesiastical authorities. With a play on Gabriel talking to the silenced. here in town*n3385 Steggle comments that 'Gabriel the Puritan, reluctant to come even to London, came only because of Covent Garden's Puritan links' (Richard Brome, p. 49. But Crosswill makes no explicit reference to Covent Garden here and the association with this specific area seems assumed by modern critics on the basis of the dubious association of the earl of Bedford's development with Puritan opposition to the Caroline regime. about it, I should not have drawn him up.

41RooksbillI would I could change a son w’ you, sir.

42CrosswillWhat kind of thing is thy son, ha? Dost thou look like one that could have a son fit for me to father, ha? And yet the best take both, and ’t please you at all adventures, ha!

43RooksbillI am sure there cannot be a worse or more debauched reprobate than mine is, living.

44CrosswillAnd is the devil too good a master for him, think’st thou, ha? Wherein can I deserve so ill at thy hands, fellow, whate’er thou art, that thou should’st wish me cumbered with a worse burden, when thou hearest me complain of this, ha? What is this fellow*n364 Here used contemptuously that you dare know him, friend Cockbrain? I will not dwell within three parishes of him.

45Rooksbill   [Aside to COCKBRAIN]   My tenant! Bless me from him! I had rather all my rents were bawdy houses*n365 Brothels. Only too likely in this district, as Rooksbill knows. However, at the end of the play he protects the bawd Margery, claiming her as one of his tenants. Rooksbill is leasing some of his property to brothel-keepers and in all likelihood knows it. .

46Cockbrain   [Aside to ROOKSBILL]   Think nothing of his words, he’ll forget all instantly. The best natured man living.

47CrosswillDost thou stand like a son now that hears his father abused, ha?

48GabrielI am praying for the conversion of the young man he speaks of.

49CockbrainWell said, Master Gabriel.

50CrosswillBut by the way, where’s your son, Anthony? Have you not heard of him yet?

51CockbrainNever since he forsook me, on the discontent he took in that he might not marry your daughter there. And where he lives, or whether he lives or not, I know not. I hope your daughter is a comfort to you.

52CrosswillYes, in keeping her chamber whole weeks together, sullenning upon her samplery breech-work*n366 Work on a sampler, or practice piece of embroidery. 'Breech work' means clothes making or mending, unrecorded in OED. , when I was in hope she would have made me a grandfather ere now*n367 Crosswill and Rooksbill are strikingly interested in grandchildren . But she has a humour, forsooth, since we put your son by her*n368 Prevented her from making her own choice, of Cockbrain’s son. , to make me a matchbroker, her marriage-maker*n369 matchmaker ; when I tell you, friend, there has been so many untoward matches of parents’ making*n370 Parental involvement in marriage decisions remained strong in the early seventeenth century, particularly when wealth and influence were at stake. Though marriage over the strong objections of either party appears to have been rare, there was probably growing tension in the period between family and kin direction and an increasing sense of the primacy of individual choice and the desire for affective unions. , that I have sworn she shall make her own choice, though it be of one I hate. Make me her match-maker! Must I obey her, or she me, ha?

53CockbrainI wish, with tears, my son had had her now*n3028 Cockbrain's line is iambic pentameter, all the more obvious after Crosswill's emphatic and chaotic rhythms. Katherine shifts into iambic pentameter two lines later, which she will continue in her four-line speech after her father's interruption. The verse effects a tonal change: the Katherine-Anthony love plot is introduced and their status as a heroine and hero in a romantic comedy is communicated. .

54KatherineWherein, sir, – under correction – do I disobey you?

55CrosswillIn that very word, under correction, thou disobey’st me. Are you to be under correction at these years,*n371 The play does not specify Katherine's age, but she has clearly reached adulthood. She is probably in her early twenties, old enough for marriage and unmarried for long enough to render her father anxious. ha? If I ha’ not already taught you manners beyond the help of correction, go, seek a wiser father to mend ’em.

56KatherineYet give me leave, dear sir, in my excuse –

57CrosswillLeave out correction, then.

59CrosswillLa, there again! How subtly she seeks dominion over me! No, housewife, no; you keep no house of mine. I’ll nestle you no longer under my wing. Are you not fledge†gg1640 OED fledge a 1. Of young birds (rarely of the wings): Fit to fly; having the feathers fully developed, fledged. 2. Furnished for flight. Const. with. Also fig. *n3113 ] fledge. McClure changes this to 'fledged', but 'fledge' is not necessarily a verb here and this edition therefore leaves the word unchanged. ? I’ll have you fly out, I,*n375 1659: I. The same typographical sign is used for 'I' or 'Aye' in the first edition, and it is usually clear from context which is meant. In this case both readings could be defended. as other men’s daughters do; and keep a house of your own if you can find it.

60GabrielWe had a kinswoman flew*n376 Gabriel takes Crossbrain’s fledge and draws on the contemporary sexual connotation of 'to fly' (copulation). See Brome, Demoiselle 3.2 [DM 3.2.speech562]. out too lately, I take it.*n377 Gabriel uses a cool, oblique comment to needle his father.

61CrosswillWhat tell’st thou me of her, wise-acres?*n378 The etymology of this term seems to be the Middle Dutch 'wijsseggher', a soothsayer (OED Wiseacre). However, in English there is a false etymological link to 'acres'; and this is obviously appropriate to Gabriel as the elder son, expected to inherit the Crosswill family's estates, even though the physical acres have just been sold by his father. †gg1641 wiseacre: one who would be thought wise Can they not fly out a little, but they must turn arrant whores*n1123 Laura Gowing (Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London, p. 59) points out that 'the word ''whore'' rarely meant a real prostitute, and the word of insult was understood to be related only opaquely to actual sex'. But in this play 'whore' does mean prostitute (it is only used again in connection with Betty and Francisca) and the connection with unlicensed and commercial sexual activity is essential. , ha?*n379 Crosswill attacks Gabriel’s extreme position: is there no middle way between being totally under the control of a parent and selling oneself as a whore? Tell me of your kinswoman? ’Tis true, she was my niece;*n380 Gabriel calls her a 'kinswoman'; Crosswill calls her his niece. Dorcas's exact relationship to other members of the Crosswill family is never clarified. It was not unusual in this period for an illegitimate child to be brought up in the same household with the father’s legitimate children, being politely differentiated by being called nephew or niece. See OED Nephew 1b, citing William Harrison Description of England: 'For nephews might say in those days, "Father, shall I call you uncle?" And uncles also; "Son, I must call thee nephew."' A similar ambiguity lurks over the status of Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing: she is not the acknowledged daughter of Leonato or Antonio; and the embarrassment of her interactions with Don Pedro suggests that there are impediments to her making a distinguished marriage. If this is the case, Crosswill's alarm at the growing affection between Gabriel and Dorcas is more explicable: they are half-brother and sister. she went to ’t*n381 Became sexually active before marriage a little afore her time. Some two years since, and so fled from religion; and is turned Turk, we fear.*n382 Become a prostitute. Cp. John Marston, The Dutch Courtesan 2.1 and Thomas Decker, 1 Honest Whore 4.1.175. The phrase associates the sexual slide from chastity to promiscuity with a slide away from Christianity, particularly with reference to the threatening Ottoman empire. See Richard Daborne, A Christian Turned Turk (1612). There was much interest in this period in the differences in sexual mores of Middle Eastern and Eastern societies; see the interest in Turkish sexuality in The Novella. And what of that in your precisianical†gg1634 'one who is rigidly precise or punctilious in the observance of rules or forms'; 'in the 16th and 17th centuries synonymous with Puritan' (OED) wisdom? I have such children as no man has. But, as I was saying, would ye top me, huswife, ha? Look you, now I chide her, she says nothing. Is this obedience, ha?

62KatherinePerhaps I might unfortunately cast my affection on a man that would refuse me.*n384 Katherine’s comment expresses the fear that, by stepping out of the usual processes of match-making which involved intermediaries and negotiations by parents or others, she may expose herself to rejection. Doing so could result in serious consequences for the woman in the period. See Diana O’Hara, Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor England (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).

63CrosswillThat man I would desire to know. Show me that man. See if I swinge*n385 To beat, flog, whip, thrash (OED swinge v, 1). him not [who] dares*n3242 1659: not dares slight my daughter.

64Cockbrain   [Aside]   Still the old humour, self-willed, cross, and touchy; but suddenly reconciled.   [Aloud to CROSSWILL]   Come, Master Crosswill, to the business.

65CrosswillOh, you told me of a house you had found for me.

66CockbrainYes, sir. And here’s the landlord.

67CrosswillDoes he look or go like one could let a house worthy of me?*n386 Rooksbill must look shabby and behave less than elegantly. This moment is important to the characterization of Crosswill, however: he uses the same formula in speaking of Rooksbill’s suitability as a landlord as he does the latter’s suitability as a father. Houses, sons, all are one to Crosswill when he’s defining class superiority.

68CockbrainSir, we have able builders here, that will not carry least show of their buildings on their backs.*n387 Cockbrain is reassuring Crosswill that Rooksbill's shabbiness does not indicate impoverishment: London builders, though suitably rich, don’t display their wealth in a way likely to offend their social superiors. This is a rich, sufficient man, I assure you, and my friend.

69CrosswillI cry him heartily mercy, and embrace him. And now I note you better, you look like Thrift*n8819 Emblems of thrift itself.

I cannot think you will throw away your houses at a cast.*n391 Figurative use of a hunting phrase, 'the spreading out of the hounds in different directions in search of a lost scent' (OED). The point appears to be that the builders are canny businessmen. You have a son, perhaps, that may, by the commendations you gave of him. Let’s see your house.

70CockbrainCome away, Master Gabriel.

71CrosswillCome, sir, what do you gape and shake the head at there? I’ll lay my life he has spied the little cross upon the new church yond, and is at defiance with it.*n392 Just what was the import of Gabriel’s apparent gaze at the top of the new church in Covent Garden is somewhat vexed. Martin Butler (Theatre and Crisis, pp. 147-8) follows received opinion when he associates the church’s Tuscan order with republicanism and opposition to Charles I: 'Like Salisbury's Royal Exchange, Covent Garden was a prestigious assertion of dynastic wealth and power right at the heart of London. It was also a challenge to Laud’s conforming ministry. Covent Garden church was the first church to be built in London since the Reformation and the puritan earl reserved its patronage to himself, resisting the attempts of the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields to control the living. Architecturally, it reflected the earl’s principles, being built in the deliberately plain Tuscan style, the lowest of the five orders and usually treated by architects as a purely theoretical style; it implied a return to the primitive and vernacular. The square too, an Italianate piazza, was unlike anything in London; perhaps it would have reminded contemporaries of the wealth and republicanism of Venice'. Clearly, there are problems with this: Crosswill assumes Gabriel is opposed to the church, yet Gabriel is a Puritan; he would be expected to respond positively to the architecture of a godly aristocrat. The Piazza generally does not resemble anything in Venice (even though Cockbrain thinks it does; but he significantly says as he makes the comparison that he has never travelled), but is more likely to have been influenced by squares in Livorno, Paris, or Madrid (see Dianne Duggan, '"London the Ring, Covent Garden the Jewell of that Ring": New Light on Covent Garden' Architectural History 43 (2000) 140-161, note 7). The designer of the church is Inigo Jones, the king’s Surveyor, hardly an opposition figure or likely to design an edifice to express opposition to the king’s ecclesiastical policies. Jones’s designs for Covent Garden’s St Paul’s connect with his Tuscan works for the king at the nearby St. James’s Palace. This play demonstrates, as does Brome’s Venetian play The Novella, that the primary connotation of Venice for this audience is licentiousness and immorality. More recent scholarship on the building history of Covent Garden sets this right, particularly works by Dianne Duggan. In '"London the Ring, Covent Garden the Jewell of that Ring": New Light on Covent Garden' Architectural History 43 (2000) 140-161, she demonstrates that new evidence from letters and legal statements evidence 'provides for the first time documentary confirmation that Jones was not only the surveyor of the whole project, but along with Charles I was the driving force behind the design. Bedford, while patron of the development, can be shown to have played only a restricted role in the architecture of the Piazza and church' (p. 141). Gabriel’s assumed censorious gaze sees not the work of a godly earl but rather an expression of something certainly not vernacular: an obviously Italianate and potentially papist structure. Brome’s joke is reinforced when Gabriel clarifies that he was not looking at the church but at the 'Venetian' prostitute on the Palladian balcony in the same sightline. To the Puritan eye both Dorcas and St Paul’s, Covent Garden, are provocative, expressions of both actual prostitution and the figurative Scarlet Whore of Babylon. Sirrah, I will make you honour the first syllable of my name*n3029 But which first syllable? Crosswill means his given name, and so 'Will'; but Gabriel seems to learn the lesson of the family name: Cross. . My name is Will Crosswill, and I will have my humour. Let those that talk of me for it speak their pleasure, I will do mine.

72GabrielI shall obey you, sir.

73CrosswillNow you are in the right. You shall indeed. I’ll make your heart ache else, d’ ye see?*n393 Do you see?

74GabrielBut truly, I was looking at that image*n3030 Delight in and hatred of images formed one of the ideological battlegrounds of the Stuart period: the image was distrusted by some militant Protestants as enticing and deceiving, and characteristic of Popish corruption. Sure enough, Dorcas is displaying herself to advertise illicit sexuality, stressing her claimed Italian and therefore Catholic origins. She aspires to be a whore, even if not the Scarlet Whore of Babylon. As will become clearer as the scene continues, her display and allure are connected with the Italianate architecture of the Piazza of Covent Garden itself, which seduces and corrupts the native English eye and imagination. , that painted idolatrous image yonder, as I take it.

75Cockbrain   [Aside.]   O heresy!*n394 Cockbrain immediately sees Dorcas as a prostitute, but tries to put the others off the scent. He must mislead them to be more sure of Crosswill taking the house so that he, Cockbrain, can fulfil his commission from Rooksbill. It is characteristic that Cockbrain applies a religious term (heresy) to a social infraction.    [Aloud to the others]   It is some lady or gentlewoman standing upon her balcony.n395 The Covent Garden development may have contained the first such balconies in England. Their novelty explains the servant Belt's lack of knowledge of them and also a sense of racy contemporaneity in the scene. Cockbrain knows this is a prostitute advertising herself but is keen to divert others from that knowledge, and the realisation that the development he is promoting as socially exclusive is being colonised by the commercial sex trade and other forms of vicious life. Cockbrain has called the new development a 'plantation'; but his plantation is now being 'planted' by a different kind of coloniser, the prostitute. See The Novella, and also James Shirley's Celestina in The Lady of Pleasure (1635), who strikingly hits many of the same notes (idolatry, gazing, and attracting the eyes of the unsophisticated visitor to the newly fashionable town): 'my balcony / Shall be the courtier's idol, and more gazed at / Than all the pageantry at Temple Bar / By country clients.' (1.2.92-95)
Discussion among editors and actors of this scene drew attention to the many other instances of women appearing at windows or balconies in plays of this period. In some the women are conscious of display and sexual advertisement; in others they are unconscious, but those observing them interpret their appearance in the light of a well-known code of sexual and commercial display.

76BeltHer belle coney? Where is it? I can spy from her foot to her face, yet I can see no belle coney she has.*n396 1659 spells this 'Bellconey'. 'Balcony' was pronounced with the stress on the middle syllable until the 1780s at least (so stressed in William Cowper, 'The Diverting History of John Gilpin' [1782]) making Belt's misunderstanding easily credible. His emphasis renders the word obscene, with the auditoy pun on belle=beautiful or fine, coney/cunny=female genitalia. It is characteristic that the servant is given this line, even though Brome himself had and continued to acknowledge servant-class origins.

77CockbrainWhat a knave’s this? That’s the balcony she stands on, that which jets*n397 juts. This echoes the vocabulary of James I's (much reissued) proclamations against new building. out so on the forepart of the house. Every house here has one of ’em.

78Belt’Tis very good; I like the jetting out of the forepart very well; it is a gallant fashion*n399 Gallant is ambiguous: courtier-like, but also with a sexual connotation. It may be that, in courtesan mode, her breasts are showing or barely covered. indeed.

79Cockbrain   [Aside]   I guess what she is, what e’er I have said. O Justice, look to thine office.

80CrosswillCome now, to this house, and then to my son Mihil, the spark you spoke of. And if I find him cross too, I’ll cross him. Let him look to ’t. D’ ye see?

81CockbrainI’ll see you housed; and then about my project*n3031 The actor has to decide how much, if any, of this line is aside. 'I'll see you housed' could be addressed to Crosswill, but the rest of the line cannot: Crosswill does not know of Cockbrain's ambition to be a reformer of manners and of Covent Garden. Does Cockbrain address that to Rooksbill; or to the audience, as everyone else (except Gabriel and Dorcas) leaves the stage? , which is for weeding of this hopeful garden.*n400 'Weeding' and 'hopeful garden' are italicised here in 1659. [Exit all] [except GABRIEL and DORCAS].

83ClotpollTroth, I have a great mind to be one of the Philoblathici,†gg1643 philo=lover; blathici=version of bladei; but there may also be a connection with 'blether', nonsense a Brother of the Blade and Battoon,†gg1644 a stout staff or stick used as a weapon, a cudgel, club, truncheon (OED 1) as you translate it, now ye have beat it into my head. But I fear I shall never come on and off handsomely. I have mettle*n412 Throughout this scene there is a play on mettle as courage, metal as coin, and metal as sexual potency. enough, methinks, but I know not how, methinks, to put it out.

84NicholasWe’ll help you out with it, and set it flying for you, never doubt it.

85ClotpollObotts,†gg1645 a corruption of 'A pox!' (OED Botts 2) you mean my money metal, I mean my valour mettle, I.

86AnthonyPeace, hark.

87ClotpollT’other flies fast enough already.

88NicholasPox on ye, peace.

89NicholasO most melodious.

90ClotpollMost odious, did you say? It is methinks most odoriferous.

91AnthonyWhat new devise can this be? Look![DORCAS exits from the balcony.]

92NicholasShe is vanished. Is ’t not the mountebank’s wife*n415 The references in these speeches to a 'mountebank' and his wife may refer to Volpone. But the tone seems to suggest that the audience would know of a real mountebank. I have not traced a particular story, however. As in Volpone, there is an association between the performance of the mountebank and that of the actors in a theatre, contributing to the play's intermittent metatheatricality and concern with the performance-aspect of social, particularly urban, life. that was here; and now come again to play some new merry tricks*n416 The mountebank’s tricks OED. But his wife’s 'merry tricks' are clearly sexual. OED records 'trick' meaning 'a prostitute's session with a client' as only twentieth century and chiefly American ('turning tricks' is US slang). Trick 10. a. An instance of the sexual act or any of its variations. by herself?

93ClotpollA botts*gg1645 a corruption of 'A pox!' (OED Botts 2) on ’t, I never saw that mountebank; they say, he brought the first resort into this new plantation, and sowed so much seed of knavery and cozenage here, that ’tis fear’d ’twill never out.*n418 As with the previous reference to 'the mountebank's wife', the play seems to be associating charlatanage, acting, and the marketing of Covent Garden.

94NicholasNay, but this creature: what can she be?

95ClotpollAnd then again, he drew such flocks of idle people to him, that the players, they say, cursed him abominably.*n419 1659: abhominally. In the original spelling, this is just possibly a pun on ad hominem.

96AnthonyThou ever talk’st of the wrong matter.*n2180 Clotpoll is tone-deaf and cannot perform the role of roaring boy with any wit or finesse.

97ClotpollCry mercy, Brothers of the Blade and Battoon. Do you think if I give my endeavour to it, I shall ever learn to roar and carry it as you do, that have it naturally, as you say?

98NicholasYes, as we’ll beat it into you. But this woman, this musical woman, that set herself out to show so, I would be satisfied in her.

99ClotpollAnd she be as able as she seems, she has in her to satisfy you*n3032 Repeatedly, Clotpoll's speeches strip away euphemism, revealing for what they really are the crude and unpleasant conduct and objectives of the other young men. Anthony has just criticized him for speaking 'of the wrong matter'. But it is more that he speaks in the wrong manner, not having either the social awareness of the need to apply a veneer of gentility or the rhetorical skill to do so. , and you were a Brother of ten Blades, and ten Battoons.

100NicholasI vow*n420 The witty young men are playing at being boors, but Clotpoll mirrors it back to them and they do not like what they see. Being without wit, Clotpoll has no irony to undercut the vulgarity and harshness of their misogyny. Here it is significant that Nick is the one who reacts; he betrayed Dorcas and will eventually marry her. He asks Anthony if he ever saw her before; ironically it is Nick himself who has been intimate with Dorcas, but does not remember. – peace. I’ll battoon thy teeth into thy tongue else. She bears a stately presence.*n8820 Nick's tone here has a wistful reverence. There is none of the boorish bluster he displays in the next scene and he seems to resent Clotpoll's inability to imagine a more sophisticated response. Thou never saw’st her before, didst thou, Tony?

101AnthonyNo; but I heard an inkling at the Paris Tavern*n421 See LCC, Survey of London vol. 36, for material relating to the real Paris Tavern. Thomas Dekker has a similar joke in The Guls Hornbook (1609) p 7: 'it is no more like the old Theater du munde than old Paris garden is like the king's garden at Paris'. last night of a she-gallant that had travelled France and Italy; and that she would –

102Clotpoll   [Aside to himself,writing in his notebook]*n2181 1659: write table    “Battoon thy teeth into thy tongue*n422 Clotpoll is pathetically copying down clever sayings. Clotpoll enjoys the anarchy of the gang and his theatrical ancestors clearly include roaring boys like Jonson’s Kastril (The Alchemist). But his naïve copying of fine phrases also associates him with Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who performs the same action and is labeled a Clodpoll (Much Ado about Nothing 3.4.168). ”.

103Anthony– plant some of her foreign collections, the fruits of her travels, in this garden here, to try how they would grow or thrive on English earth.

104NicholasYoung Pig was speaking of such a one to me, and that she was a mumper.†gg1647 a beggar, a mendicant; a person who sponges on others (OED), from the Dutch, Momper

105ClotpollWhat’s that, a Sister of the Scabbard,*n424 The obvious sexual connotation is confirmed by the title of a short pamphlet in the Thomason Tracts from 1641: The sisters of the scabards holiday: or, a dialogue between two reverent and very vertuous matrons, Mrs. Bloomesbury, and Mrs. Long-Acre her neare neighbour. [electronic resource] : Wherein is discoursed how terrible, and costly the civill law was to their profession; and how they congatulate [sic] the welcome alteration (London : s.n, 1641). E.168.(8.) The fact that the two brothel-keepers are given names of Bloomsbury and Long-Acre confirms the reputation of the area to which Covent Garden is adjacent as being the haunt of prostitutes and loose-livers. Brother of the Blade?

106NicholasCome, come; we’ll in, we’ll in; ’tis one of our father’s buildings; I’ll see the inhabitants.*n2182 Nick is the leader of the gang; his speech and conduct raise questions about his prime motives. Is he simply after sex? Or is he showing off to other young men? Or does he mean merely to drink himself to oblivion? The stress here on his father's ownership of the house and, by virtue of that, his right to force entry and look at the occupants, suggests that in both financial and sexual matters crude possessiveness results in a sense of power that dehumanizes others. They are merely inhabitants, not people; sex objects, not women. Some money, Clotpoll, furnish, I say, and quickly – I vow –

107ClotpollYou shall, you shall.

108NicholasWhat shall I?

109ClotpollVow twice before you have it.

110NicholasI vow, and I vow again, I’ll coin*n441 Make coins out of base metal. Here also with the sense of the physical violence of stamping coins, the equivalent of beating Clotpoll until he surrenders his money. thy brains –[NICHOLAS threatens to strike CLOTPOLL]

111ClotpollHold, hold, take your poll money   [CLOTPOLL gives NICHOLAS money]   *n442 Poll means head or the top of the head: OED Poll n 1. Here, as well as being part of Clotpoll’s name, the verbal play concerns a poll or capitation tax, frequently levied throughout the seventeenth century. It is not clear whether Clotpoll is aware of the double meaning: as well as the allusion to taxation, Nick is threatening to beat him on the head until he complies. ; I thought I would have my will;    [Aside to himself, writing in his notebook*n2183 1659: write ]   and the word I look for, “I’ll coin thy brains. I do not love to give my money for nothing. I have a volume of words here, the worst of ’em is as good as a blow; and then I save my crown*n443 Both a coin worth 5 shillings and the top of the head (OED 17 a). whole half a dozen times a day, by half a crown a time. There’s half in half saved by that.

112NicholasCome, let’s appear civil*n444 The first of many uses of this word in the play, though Cockbrain has already used the variant 'civility' in the first scene. Notions of the civil and civility are crucial for the theme of the contest over what kind of a society is going to take shape in, inhabit, and construct Covent Garden. Angel Day, in his much republished The English secretorie Wherin is contayned, a perfect method, for the inditing of all manner of epistles and familiar letters (1586), comments instructively on 'urbanity': 'Your Urbanity likewise being derived of the Latin word urbanus, which is civil, courteous, gentle, modest, or well ruled, as men commonly are in cities and places of good government, whereof that word taketh his original' (p. 39; quoted in Phil Withington, The Politics of Commonwealth: Citizens and Freemen in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 7. See also pp. 213-224, 'Civility and Slavery'). Different characters in The Weeding of Covent Garden use the word to mean or imply many different and often contradictory things: being without a sexual disease; sexually compliant; demure; socially sophisticated; chaste; morally upstanding; politely tolerant of immoral behaviour; excessively passive and religious (in a young man); and so on. It also occurs in important combinations: civil lawyer and civil magistrate. , till we have our entrance, and then as occasion serves – [They] knock.

113[Francisca]*n6172 No Speech Prefix in 1659 Who would you speak withal?

114NicholasYour mistress, little one.

115FranciscaDo you know her, sir?

116NicholasNo; but I would know her*n445 Nick begins the sexual double-entendres that are going to characterise this scene. He introduces the sense of 'knowing' her sexually. , that’s the business: I mean the musical gentlewoman that was fiddling, and so many in the what-do-’e-call-’t e’en now.*n446 Nicholas’s words are shot through with sexual allusions. Almost everything here can be a double entendre. Fiddle and fiddling particularly, also 'what d’ye call it' for genitalia and sexual actions, are frequently used in the period.

117FranciscaWhat-do-call her, sir, I pray?

118NicholasWhat-do-call her? ’Tis not come to that yet, prithee let me see and speak with her first.

119FranciscaYou are disposed, I think.

120NicholasWhat should we do here else?

121FranciscaYou won’t thrust in upon a body whether one will or no?*n447 Francisca superficially means 'break into the house', but there is an obvious sexual connotation, the implication that forced entry into the house is a precursor to rape. In both this scene and the following, there is an ambiguity over the allegiance and knowingness of Francisca and Madge. Are they shocked and siding with Dorcas? Or do they see their roles as abettors of their potential clients, the young men? Francisca may be well aware of the ambiguity of her words here, teasing and provoking the young men through her word choice.

122Anthony, NicholasAway, you monkey*n448 'Monkey' was often used for a sexually promiscuous person of either sex. .[NICHOLAS and ANTHONY exit,
forcing their way past FRANCISCA]

123FranciscaO me, what do you mean?

124ClotpollO my brave Philoblathici![All exit]

125[Dorcas]What’s the matter, the girl cries out so?

126MargeryI know not. I fear some rude company, some of the wild crew,†gg807 'crew' could be neutral, meaning a gathering or group, but here the pejorative meaning is clear: 'a number of persons classed together (by the speaker) from actual connexion or common characteristics; often with derogatory qualification or connotation; lot, set, gang, mob, herd' (OED n1. 4) are broke into the house.

127FranciscaWhither would you go? You won’t rob the house, will ye?

128NicholasWill ye be quiet, whiskin?†gg430 (1) northern dialect term in Caroline period for a shallow kind of drinking vessel; (2) slang term for a pander (OED's first recorded usage in this sense)

129MargeryOh me, ’tis so: hell’s broke loose*n2186 Madge's references to Hell and 'a legion of devils' begin a long series in this scene. Nick's name connects him with the devil; he contracts 'Damaris' to 'Dammy', heard as a contraction of 'Damn me' also; he talks of being 'familiar' with her; Madge accuses Dorcas of conjuring. Nick says his father may not be mortal and that, if he is, he's too bad for burial even in unconsecrated ground. . This comes of your new fingle-fangle†gg1648 a trifle; something whimsical or fantastic (OED) fashion, your preposterous Italian way, forsooth.*n7324 The scene begins and ends with tense and hostile exchanges between Madge and Dorcas, highlighting the precariousness of Dorcas's authority over her bawd. Would I could have kept my old ways of pots and pipes, and my strong-water course for customers.†gg1649 strong water is a translation of aquafortis, but here for strong liquors, spirits The very first twang of your fiddle guts has broke all, and conjured a legion of devils among us.

130NicholasNay, there’s but a leash*n453 Three, again, using his father’s word from earlier in the scene. Nick has overheard 'legion' and plays on the sound, converting it to 'leash,' from many to three. of us. How now? Who have we here? Are these the far travelled ladies? O thou party purple, or rather parboiled bawd.*n454 Nick taunts Madge with mock respect (her flushed face as an attribute of gentility, purple being the imperial, regal, or aristocratic colour), but then insults her by saying she looks half boiled. Nick greets Madge as a bawd, though in fact her relationship with Dorcas is more that of an agent, even a pimp, because Dorcas has recruited her as a business manager on deciding to enter the commercial sex trade. See Paul Griffiths, 'The structure of prostition in Elizabethan London', Continuity and Change 8 (1993) 39-63, p. 44, for a summary of the many different kinds of relationships between bawds and prostitutes. In Act 5, Scene 2, Lucy asks her new husband, Mihil, of her, 'What was your widow, sir? She stunk of aquavitae fearfully'; bawds were often characterised as having bad breath, a symptom of their diseased selves. See Paul Griffiths, 'The structure of prostition in Elizabethan London', p. 46.

131Margery   [To DORCASn2187 In 1659 Dorcas's line is set as part of Madge's. There are a number of possible ways of playing both parts here, depending on how the relationships between Dorcas, Madge, and the young men are conceived. Does Madge ask Dorcas for instructions? Or does she already show that her real alliegance lies with the clients (she knows Nick already)? ]   What shall I do?

132[DORCAS]   [To MARGERY]   Out, alas!n4601 Dorcas appears to mean that the intruders should be expelled, but her response may simply be an alarmed exclamation, perhaps in direct address to the audience.
Dorcas's line is set as a continuation of Madge's in the 1659 printing. Sure they are devils indeed.

133NicholasArt thou travelled 'cross the seas from the Bankside hither, old Countess of Codpiece Row*n455 Southwark was notorious from the fourteenth century on as the location for a thriving sex trade. It was outside the complete control of the London city authorities, on land controlled by the Bishops of Winchester. Codpiece Row, however, was in Whitechapel and was a notorious street for brothels. It appears in Thomas Middleton's Middle Temple Masque (1619), in Dr. Almanac's censure of Shrovetuesday (a day on which apprentices attacked brothels and other places of entertainment): 'Tis in your charge to pull downe Bawdyhouses, To set your Tribe aworke, cause spoyle in Shorditch, And make Dangerous Leake there, deface Turnbul, And tickle Codpiece Rowe, ruine the Cockpit, the Poore Players ne're thriud in't, a my Co[n]science some Queane pist vpon the first Bricke.' See Jerzy Limon, 'A silenc'st bricke-layer': an allusion to Ben Jonson in Thomas Middleton's 'Masque' Notes and Queries, Dec 1994 v41 n4 p512(3) ?

134Clotpoll   [Aside to himself, writing in his notebook*n2188 1659: write ]   “Party purple and parboiled bawd –”

135AnthonyAnd is this the damsel that has been in France and Italy?

136Clotpoll   [Aside to himself, writing in his notebook]   “Codpiece Row”.

137MargeryPeace, ye roaring scabs.†gg1650 slang term of abuse or deprecation applied to persons: a mean, low 'scurvy' fellow; a rascal, scoundrel I’ll be sworn she supped at Paris Tavern last night, and lay not long ago at the Venice by Whitefriars Dock.*n457 Whitefriars was one of the City liberties, particularly known for prostitution. See Mary Bly, 'Playing the Tourist in Early Modern London: Selling the Liberties Onstage' PMLA 122 (2007), pp. 61-71. Madge immediately becomes complicit with the young men, undermining Dorcas's pose as a foreigner n7325 With this speech Madge ceases to pretend that Dorcas is an exotic, foreign courtesan. Instead she mocks the pretence and in so doing decisively aligns herself with Nick and the young male clients. Madge is colluding with Nick, isolating Dorcas yet more. Actors and editors extensively discussed Madge's role here and the degree to which the disorder of the town becomes apparent in the young men's entrance.

138NicholasPrithee, what is she, Madge?

139MargeryA civil gentlewoman you see she is.

140NicholasShe has none of the best faces.*n2189 Nick is probably far gone in drink even when he enters. In any case, he doesn't recognize Dorcas, despite having seduced her, and he insults her to and about her face. But is she warrantable?†gg428 guaranteed virtuous (OED 2) *n458 Here, certifiable as 'clean', without disease. I have not had a civil night these three months.

141[Margery]Nor none are like to have here, I assure you.

142NicholasOh, Madge, how I do long thy thing to ding diddle ding!

143MargeryOh, Nick, I am not in the humour; no more is she to be o’ the merry pin†gg1651 the pin used to tune a stringed instrument, an analogy often used for mood or disposition now. I am sure her case is too lamentable. But if you will all sit down, I’ll give you a bottle of wine, and we’ll relate her story to you, so you will be civil.n2190 Madge diverts the energy into story-telling, telling Nick at the outset that he will get no sex today. Ironically, the story is about him, but he never gets to hear it onstage. Nonetheless, Madge will sell some wine. Brome may be echoing the storytelling element in some of Shakespeare's late comedies, some of which were playing in revivals at this time, especially Pericles, where the life story of a woman about to become a prostitute dominates the play's conclusion.
Madge's invitation for the men to sit begins a series of movements, sitting and standing, that prove powerful within the scene. Madge maintains control by remaining standing ; Nick's commands to his fellows, and to Dorcas, to sit show his status as leader of the gang of young men, and also as his father's potential heir.

144NicholasWell, for once I care not if we be.

Let us set to’t, then; sit down, Brother Tony, sit down, gentlewoman, we shall know your name anon. I hope it will fall in your story; sit down, Clotpoll.

145ClotpollYou will call me Brother Clotpoll too when I have taken my oath, and paid my entrance into the fraternity*n461 The 1659 text prints 'faternity'. It is just conceivable that this is a deliberate mistake to mock Clotpoll, but he is nowhere else said to be fat. of the Blade and the Battoon.

146Nicholas’Tis like we shall. Now Lady of the Stygian Lake*n3027 The underworld lake formed from the River Styx, one of the five rivers surrounding Hades. The 'Lady' is probably the goddess Styx, who gave her name to the river and lake. The daughter of Erebus (darkness) and Nyx (night), she is one of the few female river gods and, for her help against the Titans, Zeus gave her elevated powers and forced all gods to drink from her waters when swearing an oath, the penalty for falsity being the loss (temporary or permanent) of immortality. Madge is a presiding 'goddess' of prostitution, is a water goddess of sorts having come across the Thames from Southwark, is repeatedly referred to as dark or black, and in this context she controls the magic potion, alcohol. The ironic appellation recalls Thomas Nashe's deflating but affectionate adaptation of classical materials in his rewriting in Lenten Stuff (1599) of Marlow's Hero and Leander. , thou black infernal Madge, begin the dismal story, whilst I begin the bottle.

147MargeryThis gentlewoman, whose name is Damyris –

148NicholasDamyris? Stay. Her nick-name then is Dammy,*n462 Nicholas takes ownership by giving a nickname, and a vulgar one in that it sounds like a curse. Nick shows that he feels no need to be polite or to seduce: he is buying the merchandise. so we may call her when we grow familiar. And to begin that familiarity, Dammy, here’s to you –Drinks a toast

149[Dorcas]And what’s your nick-name, I pray, sir?n7326 Despite her vulnerability and isolation, Dorcas's superior knowledge -- no-one else on stage is aware that she knows Nick all too well of old -- allows her to throw something of a challenge to him. Alan Morrissey caught this well by stressing 'nick-name', making it heavily sardonic. Dorcas is certainly afraid and vulnerable, but she stands her ground. Is she disgusted and offended that Nick does not even recognise her in his drunken state?

150NicholasNick.*n463 'Nickname' is a metanalytic form of 'eke-name', an additional or supplemental name. Nick Rooksbill is enjoying patronizing wordplay here, but Dorcas refuses to be cowed or put down, expanding his name and forcing him to move beyond 'only Nick' to confirm that he is, indeed, Nicholas Rooksbill. She has clearly recognized him and responds aggressively. He is ill at ease with both the name and the identity as his father’s son (and namesake); he responds with bravado: 'what do you make o' that?' Only Nick; Madge there knows it.

151[Dorcas]Then I believe your name is Nicholas.

152NicholasI vow – witty. Yes, Dammy, and my surname is Rooksbill, and so is my father’s too. And what do you make o’ that?

153[Dorcas]Nothing, not I, sir.   [Aside]   Sure, this is he.

154NicholasAnd I would he were nothing, so I had all he has. I must have t’other glass to wash him out of my mouth, he furs it worse than Mundungus tobacco.*n464 Poor quality and evil-smelling tobacco, from Mondongo, tripe, evil-smelling stew, Spanish and Hispanic. Sometimes spelled 'Mundongus'. Here, old Madge   [Drinks a toast*n2192 Nick's response to the thought of his father is to drink even more. By the end of the scene he admits to being incapable of thought. Drinking toasts seems to be his way of cutting short any contemplation of the unpalatable. ]   and to all the birds that shall wonder at thy owletship*n7327 Madge is the chief bird, as the bawd; her prostitutes are 'all the other birds'. , when thou rid’st in an ivy-bush called a cart.*n465 Bawds and prostitutes were often termed 'owls'. Nick is playing on a proverbial saying, 'to look like an owl in an ivy bush', but Nick adds the reference to the cart. Riding in or behind a cart was the punishment for prostitutes or bawds (see Gowing, pp. 104-5). The famous manager of the brothel Holland's Leaguer was in 1597 sentenced to be 'put into a cart at Newgate and be carted with a paper on her head showing her offence, from thence to Smithfield, from thence to her house, from thence to Cornhill, from thence to the Standard in Cheap[side], from thence to Bridewell, and all the way basins to be rung before her, at Bridewell to be punished, and from thence to be brought to Newgate' (Williams, 1.210). See the summary on 'carting' in Robert Ashton, 'Popular Entertainment and Social Control in Later Elizabethan and Early Stuart London', London Journal 9 (1983) 3-19; pp. 13-15.

155MargeryWell, mad Nick, I’ll pledge thee in hope to see as many flutter about the tree that thou shalt climb backwards.*n466 Madge implies that Nick will end up climbing the ladder to the gallows. [Drinks a toast]

156NicholasA pox! Thou wilt be stifled with offal and carrot leaves before that day.*n467 Bawds and whores would be pelted with rotten produce.

157[Dorcas]Fie, fie, what talk’s this?   [Aside]   ’Tis he, I am confident.

158MargeryThese are our ordinary compliments, we wish no harm.

159NicholasNo, Dammy, I vow, not I to any breathing.

160MargeryBut your father, Nick – is he that Rooksbill – ?

161Nicholas“But my father”! Pox rot ye, why do ye put me in mind of him again? He sticks i’ my throat, now I’ll wash him a little further – Here, Brother Tony –[Drinks a toast]

162AnthonyGramercy,*n468 Thank you, but really here just an empty but friendly exclamation. Anthony’s sense of responsibility (either a virtue or a marker of his incorrigible citizen nature) may show that he is already becoming alarmed at his friend’s rate of drinking. Brother Nick.[Drinks a toast]

163ClotpollAnd to all the Brothers that are, and are to be of the Blade and the Battoon.

164NicholasThere said you well, Clotpoll. Here ’tis –Drink[s a toast]

165MargeryI would but have asked you whether your father were that Rooksbill that is called the great builder.

166NicholasYes, marry, is it he, forsooth. He has built I know not how many houses hereabout, though he goes, Dammy, as if he were not worth a groat; and all his clothes I vow are not worth this hilt*n2193 The value of a 'hilt', a sword, comes back in Act 2, Sc. 1. The young men are wearing decidedly cheap weapons. , except those he wears, and prays for fair weather in, on my Lord Mayor’s Day;*n469 The day the newly elected Lord Mayor of London goes in formal procession to present himself at the Royal Courts of Justice, to swear his loyalty to the monarch, a day of great pageantry and celebration. According to his son, the miserly Rooksbill has only one set of fine clothes, and he prays they won’t get damaged by foul weather on the one day in the year he wears them. and you are his tenant, though perhaps you know it not,*n470 The Covent Garden development was characterised by labyrinthine subletting. Quality control by the authorities or the earl of Bedford as owner was thus extremely difficult. Of course, it also meant that all concerned could profit from sleazy and unlicensed businesses such as brothels and taverns while being able to disclaim direct responsibility. and may be mine; therefore use me welln2194 The crudeness of 'me' and 'mine' contributes to the shocking bluntness of what Nick is saying: Dorcas need not think she has the power, even as the supplier of commercial sex. Any money he pays her will make its way back to him as landlord. Positioning Dorcas as separate and subject to the controlling gaze of Madge and the young men made this sense of possession all the stronger, as did Adam Kay's decision to touch and move Dorcas physically, eventually leaving her even more precariously and offensively positioned. . For this house and the rest I hope will be mine, as well as I can hope he is mortal, of which I must confess I have been in some doubt, though now I hope again he will be the first shall lay his bones i’ the new church, though the churchyard be too good for him before ’tis consecrated.*n471 The development of Covent Garden was anchored, in the manner of so many American subdivisions, by the new St Paul’s Church, reputed the first built in England since the reformation. It was under construction during the period 1631 to 1634. The churchyard wasn’t yet ready to receive burials. See Introduction, 'Architecture'. So give me the t’other cup, for now he offends my stomach.n7328 Actors working on this scene remarked how hard it was to know what to do when Nick veers off into this long invective about his father. Dorcas is forgotten and abandoned; thought of his father drives all thoughts out of Nick's mind except the consumption of yet more alcohol.
Discussion of the problem of maintaining a dynamic in the scene when its principal character becomes so detached led to a consideration of the audience's sympathy for Nick. Only at these moments of obsession do we feel any pity for him; throughout the scene his principal interaction with the other characters seems to be to try to get them to hate his father as much as he does. Yet he also plays the bully, using his father's name and status to control and engender fear. Here’s to thee now, Clotpoll.[Drinks a toast]

167ClotpollAnd to all the Sisters of the Scabbard, Brother in Election.   [Drinks a toast]       [Aside to MARGERY and ANTHONY]   D’ ye hear, pray talk of his father no more, for the next brings him to the belly-work†gg2783 Diarrhoea (this is not recorded in the OED but survives in some Caribbean versions of English) , and then he’ll drink him quite through him.

168MargeryAnd so we shall have a foul house.

169AnthonyNo, he shall stick there.   [To DORCAS]   Now to the story, gentlewoman, ’twas that we sat for.

170NicholasAye, to the story. I vow I had almost forgot it, and I am the worst at sack†gg483 white wine from Spain: sack is derived from 'sec', and usually meant a dry white wine; hence Falstaff's enjoyment of 'sack and sugar' in a morning. Dear Dammy, to the story.

171[Dorcas]Good sir, my heart’s too full to utter ’t.

172NicholasTroth, and my head’s too full to hear it. But I’ll go out and quarrel with somebody to settle my brains, then go down to Mick Crosswill to put him in mind of our meeting today; then if you will meet me at the Goat*n473 The Goat was a real tavern in the Covent Garden district. See F.H.W. Sheppard, ed., The Survey of London, vol. 36: The Parish of St. Paul Covent Garden pp. 192 and 322. at dinner*n474 The principal meal of the day, usually in the middle of the day in this period ('noonmeat'). , we’ll have it all at large.

173[Dorcas]Will you be there indeed, sir? I would speak with you seriously.

174NicholasDammy, if I be not, may my father outlive me.

175AnthonyWe both here promise you he shall be there by noon.

176Clotpoll’Lady, ’tis sworn by Blade and by Battoon.

177NicholasThis will be the bravest discovery for Mihil*n475 Nick assumes Mihil will want to have sex with the new prostitute; but, as yet unknown to them both, she is Mihil's lost 'cousin', Dorcas, who may be his father’s illegitimate daughter brought up as a niece. Even if she is not his half-sister, consanguinity of cousins has prevented Gabriel marrying her and it should prevent her and Mihil having sex too on grounds of near-incest. Paul Griffiths comments that 'The courtbooks confirm the significance of the bawdy house as an expression of the sexual vitality and camaraderie of males (especially young males), which overlapped with other items of male consumption, providing food and drink, and gossip and tables, as well as a route to sexual maturity', exactly what has happened in this scene. See 'The structure of prostitution in Elizabethan London', p. 55. , the new Italian Bona Roba*n476 A wench, a physically-attractive young woman. Buona roba, fine dress. Catsoe.*n477 Nick uses a variant and feminisation of catso, an Anglicisation of the Italian cazzo, a penis. In seventeenth-century English the term meant a young blade or more generally a rogue or scamp (OED catso). NICHOLAS, ANTHONY, and CLOTPOLL exit*n9170 This Stage Direction has been moved up from its position in the 1659 printing, where it follows Madge's speech that begins 'He never breaks a promise ...'.

178MargeryWhy so sad on the sudden, niece*n478 Madge calls her niece, as Crosswill has done, a catch-all for dubious or undefined relationships. ?

179[Dorcas]But do you think he’ll come as he has promised?

180MargeryHe never breaks a promise with any of us, though he fail all the honest part o’ the world.*n479 As so often in this scene, words and phrases that seem neutral to others have poignant specificity for Dorcas: Nick has broken his promises to her. But I trust you are not taken with the ruffian. You’ll ne’er get penny by him.

181[Dorcas]I prithee, peace, I care not.

182RalphBut mistress*n1558 Rafe or Ralph is listed in the Dramatis Personae as Dorcas's servant. He addresses the question to his mistress, therefore, and she responds. The exchange again shows that Dorcas controls her fate (at least in theory) and that Madge is her agent, not her mistress. , there is a gallant now below, a jingle boy*n480 'jingle' is a sovereign coin, and by transfer a young man with lots of ready money (OED jingle n, 6); in 1659: gingle indeed, that has his pockets full of crowns that chide for vent. Shall I call him up to you?

183[Dorcas]I will see no man.

184MargeryHow’s that? I hope you jest.

185[Dorcas]Indeed, I hope you jest.

186MargeryYou will not hinder the house, I hope. Marry! This were a humour and ’t would last. Go fetch him up.

187[Dorcas]I’ll fly then out*n481 Dorcas uses the phrase 'fly out' as she did in her soliloquy on the freedoms of prostitution. But here she means a desperate leap, freedom through suicide. at window.   [Draws a knife]   Nay, by this steel*n482 Dorcas must draw a knife here, hence added stage direction. ’tis true.

188MargeryWhat’s the matter? Have I got a mad woman into the house? What, do you go about to break me the first day of your coming, before you have hanselled*n483 From 'handsel', a present given at the commencement of something, particularly the New Year. There are many ironic uses in the period, including others by Brome. Here Madge seems to refer to the cycle of present-giving that a new courtesan expects, as in The Novella, but also in the sense of 'christening' or inaugurating the use of a new couch. a couch or a bedside in ’t? Were you but now all o’ th’ heigh†gg1652 an exclamation used as a form of encouragement (OED) to set yourself out for a sign with your fiddle cum twang,*n485 Again, 'twang' is in common use to mean sexual intercourse, and picks up on Dorcas's public lute playing. and promise such wonders*n9172 McClure prints this as singular: 'wonder'. This appears to be a misreading of a feintly-printed passage in his source copy, Library of Congress 24031999. But the plural is just visible in this copy and is clearly there in other copies. , forsooth, and will not now be seen? Pray, what’s the riddle?

189[Dorcas]I’ll tell thee all anon. Prithee, excuse me. I know thy share*n1560 How much Madge's share would be is unclear but it would depend on the exact nature of the arrangement entered into with Dorcas. It is likely that the majority of prostitutes handed over additional sums out of a client’s fee. '[Alice]Farewell gave Fowkes 'in ev[er]y vs. she gained xiid. for being bawd' See Paul Griffiths, 'The structure of prostitution in Elizabethan London' Continuity and Change 8 (1993) 39-63; pp. 46-7, and p. 45 for the quotation. of his sin’s bounty*n1559 Data on the price of a session with a London prostitute in the 1630s is hard to come by. In 'The structure of prostitution in Elizabethan London', Paul Griffiths' average for a slightly earlier period is 4 shillings, 3 pence. But higher class prostitutes, particularly those warranted without disease, and virgins could command significantly more: 'Mistress Corbet sold Katherine Williams's "maidenhead to one Mr. Paule Mowdler, a merchant", for 40s' (p. 47); 'Marie Donnelly was given £10 by a single client over several weeks. Thomasin Breame received the same amount for one afternoon’s endeavour with 'a good thick sett man with a full brest, and a short statured man' (p. 46). would not come to thus much: take it, I give it thee. And prithee, let me be honest till I have a mind to be otherwise, and I’ll hinder thee nothing.

190MargeryWell, I’ll dismiss the gallant, and send you, sirrah, for another wench. I’ll have Bess Bufflehead†gg1720 a fool, blockhead (OED 1) again. This kicksy, wincy*n487 Alternative form of kicksey-winsey: fantastical, whimsical. giddibrain will spoil all. I’ll no more Italian tricks –[MARGERY and RALPH exit.]*n3249 1659: Ex. with Rafe