FR: 1524 CLTW7 19S a Gornell Wuiversity Library Ithaca, New York —_ in Philology ‘A Gigs: Tae Published. Diner the - ‘Direction of the Philological. Club . of mie avers? ‘of-North - Carolina Vous XI NuMBER ~ a _Tanvary, 1915. A _. CHAPEL ii PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY me ‘Srupies IN Patroxocy is published during the: smog, of ed arty, April, July and October. The subscription price. is $1, 50 pet years single numbers may be’ had: for fifty: ‘cents... - a - The editorial. committee is ‘ooripabed of Professor Edwin Gree iw ee Eaton E Professor, Charles W. Bain, and’ Professor WwW. M. Dey. . *, te Application for ene as succes matter at tthe ostoice _at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, pending. . ee he Collegiate Heese ‘ _ GEORGE BANTA_ PUBLISHING COMPANY ae ‘ MENASHA, WISCONSIN py 6A L1G bag Wel: 28 ae es hg THE-EWRES. v7 Dialogue. ieee firftiin Dutch | a io gs BP Ce CRULRclatia eer team te ests eT sir Ole aes he LeeLee ie eae asem, for the benetite of his Nation. LOE UC MaRS es ae LITE he eres eye propo/wia. LONDON, Printed by 4. 4. tor lehn Grove, and are to bee fold at his Shop, at Farnwads 'nne Gare inHolbogne. 1 629. VoLuME XIT January, 1915 NuMBER 1 STUDIES IN PHILOLOGY A QUARTERLY JOURNAL PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE PHILOLOGICAL CLUB OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA Wine, Beere, Ale, and Tobacco A SEVENTEENTH CENTURY INTERLUDE EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES By JAMES HOLLY HANFORD, Pua.D. (Associate Professor of English in the University of North Carolina) CHAPEL HILL PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY Asuc78 PREFACE The little interlude or debate here studied and reprinted has been passed over by students of the Elizabethan drama almost in silence. It has been thought of, apparently, as a mere dramatic oddity, filling no recognized niche in the structure of literary history. And yet the piece deserves to be remembered, if only as a curious specimen of the wit of other days. It has, moreover, a wealth of contem- porary allusion of a peculiarly interesting kind, illustrating particularly the tavern manners of our ancestors and the lore and language of their drinking. The piece is full of the stock witticisms, the ephemeral turns of phrase which were the modern polite conversations of those days.! And finally the dialogue is after all not quite sui generis, but possesses a hitherto unrecognized significance in its relation to the academic drama and especially to the minor entertainments in vogue at Cambridge University. Definite evidence that Wine, Beere and Ale was itself written for performance at Cambridge is lack- ing, though it is by no means improbable that such was the case. But its imme- diate literary connection with the little group of Cambridge plays among which I have placed it can hardly be questioned. This connection is clearer in the first edition of the piece than in the second. I have chosen, however, to reprint the latter because of the interest of the added material. The differences, which are considerable, between the first and second editions are clearly indicated in the footnotes. The third edition differs from the second chiefly in matters of spelling and punctuation; variants of this sort, I have not thought it necessary to record. In a few cases where I have corrected obvious errors of typography in the edition of 1630, the changes have been duly noted at the bottom of the page. In collating the. third edition I have made use of a copy in the possession of Mr. Alfred C. Potter of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who has very generously put his extensive collection of tobacco literature at my disposal. 1 For example, Toast’s riddling description of Nutmeg: “round and sound and all of a colour”; Wine’s excellent proverb: “At Dancing and at Foot-ball, all fellowes”; and Ale’s ‘“‘Gentlemen are you so simple to fight for the wall. Why the wall’s my Landlords,” a joke as threadbare in its day, no doubt, as any of the stale witticisms of society recorded by Dean Swift. INTRODUCTION I. EDITIONS AND REPRINTS “Wine, Beere, and Ale, Together by the Eares. A Dialogue, Written first in Dutch by Gallobelgicus, and faithfully translated out of the originall Copie, by Mercurius Brittanicus, for the benefite of his Nation. Horat. Siccis omnia nam dura Deus proposuit. London, Printed by A. M. for John Grove, and are to bee sold at his Shop, at Furnivals Inne Gate in Holborne. 1629.”’ Such, in full, is the title page of the first edition of the dialogue reprinted in the following pages. The volume is extremely rare; indeed, I know of but a single copy, a small octavo in the British Museum, formerly in the possession of the Duke of Roxburghe.! It has never, to my knowledge, been reprinted. A second edition, “‘much enlarged,” appeared in 1630 with the title ‘Wine, Beere, Ale, and Tobacco Contending for Superiority,” and it is upon this that the present text is based. The revision con- sisted in the addition of the sprightly réle of Tobacco and in two con- siderable excisions from the earlier text. Of this second edition copies are to be found in the British Museum, in the Bodleian, and in private hands. It was reprinted substantially without change for the same bookseller in 1658, adorned with a wood cut representing a tavern scene. A reprint of the second edition was published in 1854 by J. O. ‘Halliwell in his Literature of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, without collation of the first or third editions or other critical appara- tus.2_ Halliwell’s volume was of limited circulation and is now very rare. The dialogue may, therefore, fairly be called inaccessible to the modern reader.* 1 The Roxburghe arms are stamped on the fly leaf, and the book is listed in the sale catalogue of the library of John, third duke, arranged by G. and W. Nichol, London, 1812. The passages in the text of the first edition which were omitted in the edition of 1630, are carefully indicated in this copy in ink, presumably for the direction of the printer in setting the second edition. It is clear from the typographical similarities of the two that the compositor had the printed text before him. 2 Halliwell makes no mention of the first edition. He remarks that he has heard of the existence of an earlier reprint but has been unable to find any trace of it. Possibly the edition of 1658 was the one referred to. 3 Wine, Beere, and Ale is entered as a ballad, in a list with others, to Francis Coules, Jan. 24, 1630. Stationers’ Register, ed. Arber, IV, 236. This can hardly refer to the second edition of our dialogue, which bore a different title. The entry may record the transfer of publishers’ rights in the first edition or, what is more likely, the publication or transfer of a ballad using the same material. 6 Wine, Beere, II. Date AND AUTHORSHIP The ascription of Wine, Beere, and Ale, on the title page of the first edition, to Gallobelgicus and Mercurius Brittanicus conveys no trustworthy information regarding either its authorship or its source. The names are obviously mere humorous adaptations of the pseu- donyms used by the publishers of two contemporary news books; Mercurius Brittanicus being the first English newspaper, started by Thomas Archer in 1625, and Mercurius Gallobelgicus, a Latin review of continental affairs, which had been issued at half yearly intervals from Cologne since 1594 and which circulated widely in England as well as abroad. That the play is no translation from the Dutch but an original product of English wit is clear enough from the text itself, with its abundance of purely English allusions and its incessant rattle of English puns.* But while these names afford no clew to the authorship of the play, they are of some slight assistance in determining its date. The first number of Mercurius Brittanicus was issued February 23, 1624-25; the last extant number is dated February 8, 1625-26, but the periodical probably continued to run until the end of the year. The title page of Wine, Beere, and Ale must, therefore, have been composed not earlier than 1625, for, although the pseudonym Mercurius Brittanicus had been used as early as 1605 by Joseph Hall in his Mundus Alter et Idem, the association of the name in the present instance with Gallo- belgicus makes it apparent that Archer’s corranto is here alluded to. Unfortunately, this establishes no date for the dialogue itself, since the title page may well have been written when the play was prepared for publication, in or before the year 1629. In the second edition the pseudonyms were dropped.® A date not earlier than 1615 is established by the fact that Worke for Cutlers and Exchange Ware at Second Hand, which, as I have 4 The character of Sugar as an attendant on Wine would have had no point outside of England. See note to line 5. John Taylor’s Drinke and Welcome, which bas some affinities with the present dialogue, likewise alleges the authority of a Dutch original. (London 1637; reprinted Ashbee, Occasion - al Facsimile Reprints, no. 17.) Dutch, in the latter instance at least, means German, and it is doubt- less the German fondness for the malt liquors that accounts in both cases for the ascription. Dr. Har- old De Wolf Fuller, who has been so kind as to look up the matter, informs me that he has been unable to find any evidence for a Dutch original of Wine, Beere, and Ale. 5 See J. B. Williams, A History of English Journalism to the Founding of the Gazette. 1908, p. 26. Ale, and Tobacco 7 shown below,® served as models for Wine, Beere, and Ale, were pub- lished and probably acted in that year. Internal evidence would point to the years 1624-1626. There are clear allusions to the statute against drunkenness, first passed in 1603. This act was made perpetual in 1623-4 and enlarged shortly after the accession of Charles in 1625.7. The allusions may well have been prompted by one or the other of these confirmations of the law. A reference to the rise in the price of wines would also, apparently, fit this date.2 According to the tables of Rogers, the price of claret and sack, after remaining fairly stationary for several years, rose from 2s and 3s 4d in the preceding year to 2s 4d and 3s 8d the gallon in 1621-2, went down again in 1623-4, and rose permanently in 1624-5. A still further increase in the price of sack and a marked advance for the sweet wines is recorded for 1627-29. Finally, the deliberate and uncalled for vilification of tobacco in the first edition® suggests that the dialogue was probably composed while James I’s well-known aversion to the herb was still in the ascendant. The prejudice of the reigning monarch had been similarly flattered by Daniel in The Queen’s Arcadia‘® (1605) and by Jonson in the Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies' (1621). The king is said to have been deeply interested in the tobacco disputations which took place at Oxford on the occasion of the same royal visit which saw the performance of Daniel’s masque. If Wine, Beere, and Ale, in its earlier form, was prepared as an interlude for the entertainment of the king, whether at Cambridge” or elsewhere, the tobacco passage would be sufficiently explained. In the second edition the author or reviser appears to have no scruple about giving the tobacco devil his due. The intruder is, to be sure, violently disgusting to the other characters ®Pp. 14 ff. 7 See note to lines 472 and 325. We may infer from the latter reference that the statute or its enforcement was of recent date. 5 See note to line 121. ® See p. 25 ff. of text. Observe that Wine’s defence of the weed is purely satirical: “Why, when a man hath not the wit wherewith to deliver his meaning in good words, this being taken dus presently help him to spit it out gentleman-like.”’ Note also that Sugar has the last word. 10 Works. ed. Grosart, vol. II, p. 253 (lines 1110 ff.). 11 Works, ed. Cunningham, vol. VII, p. 394. The verses about tobacco do not occur in the manu- script but are found in the earliest editions. 12 Perhaps for his last visit, in 1625, as I have suggested below, p. 19. 8 Wine, Beere, and his manners are unquestionably bad. But he speaks effectively in his own behalf and succeeds at length in winning recognition. In one passage in the second edition the reviser seems to be making fun of the late poet-prince and pretty clearly alludes to the passing away of the royal ban on smoking." III. History oF THE MATERIAL The general theme of the present dialogue—a contention between personified beverages—is a very old one in the literature of Europe. The tradition reaches back at least as far as the Goliardic poetry of the twelfth century. In the middle ages, however, the dispute usually involved a comparison not of related liquors, as here, but of the antagonistic and opposite beverages of wine and water. The contest between these two irreconcilable enemies was waged in a hundred forms in practically all the languages of western Europe, and it has continued in French and German popular tradition to the present day.“ An English nursery rhyme from Devonshire, adapted from a German folksong, is clearly the descendant of the medieval disputa- tion, but this, so far as I know, is the only appearance of the wine and water material on English soil, though, of course, English versions, particularly in ballad form, may have existed. Wine, Beere, and Ale bears little specific relation to the typical debate of wine and water; the arguments and motives which it has in common with the continental versions are only such as would be likely to develop independently, given the subject of a contention among drinks. Still, considering the fact that both Wine and Water appear as persons in the contention, it seems reasonable to count our play as belonging to the common European tradition. The existence of certain variations in the material which more or less closely approximate those of our debate makes this connection more apparent. There are, for example, a number of poems in which not Wine and Water but the different wines contend. And in one instance,” after the controversy of the wines, Water appears in order 13 Lines 633 ff: ‘I am in fauour, and am growne to be the delight of poets and princes.” etc. 14 See Hanford, “‘The Medieval Debate between Wine and Water” in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, XVIII, 3, (1913). 16 Ta Disputoison du Vin et deV’Iaue, Jubinal, Nouveau recueil, II, 293; Wright, Latin Poems attrib- uted to Walter Mapes, 299 ff. Ale, and Tobacco 9 to plead his cause against them all. The matter is referred to Cupid as a connoisseur, who makes peace by declaring that each Wine has its particular use and virtue but that Water, as a common necessity, deserves to be held in highest honor. With this decision may be compared the verdict of Parson Water in the present dialogue, allowing to each of the liquors its “singularitie.” In a few medieval debates Wine contends with other beverages. And finally there are two Latin pieces, representatives perhaps of a much older tradition, in which Wine and Beer, the main antagonists in Wine, Beere, and Ale, though they do not contend in person, are contrasted much after the fashion of a debate. In the first of these, a Goliardic Altercatio vini et cervisiae” of the twelfth century, the writer, after bespeaking our attention to the iurgia of beer and wine, presents the causes of the two liquors in turn, closing with an emphatic pronouncement against the “daughter of straw” and in favor of the nobler liquor. The second Latin poem or pair of poems in which a comparison of wine and beer constitutes the theme is a Versus in commendatione vini attached to a Responsio ad quemdam contra cer- vistam,'8 both ascribed to Peter of Blois (died c. 1200). In the first the poet lauds wine by contrast with beer, describing in detail the effects of each; the Responsio is evidently a reply to some poem which turned the tables on Peter’s Versus by praising beer at the expense of wine. The points made in the comparison are, naturally and inevi- tably, much the same as those in the Altercatio, described above, and in Wine, Beere, and Ale. Coming to English literature contemporary with our dialogue of Wine, Beere, and Ale, we shall find comparison of wine and the malt 16 A Greek epigram by the Emperor Julian contrasts Celtic beer with wine. (Works, Ed. Hertlein, p. 611). The former beverage is declared to have no title to the name of Bacchus. “Beer has the odor of a goat while wine has that of nectar. The Gauls made beer in default of grapes. It is the son of Ceres not of Dionysus.’’ The traditional prejudice against beer appears again in the Latin epi- gram of Henri d’ Avranches, quoted below, note to line 291, and in Henri d’ Andeli’s Bataille des Vins, where a priest excommunicates beer from the fellowship of the wines. “S’escommenia la cervoise Qui estoit fete dela Oise, En Flanders et en Engleterre. (Oeuvres de Henri d’ Andeli, ed. Heron, p. 29.) 17 Reprinted by Bomer in Haupt’s Zeitschrift, 49 (1907-8), 161. 18 Migne, Patrologia Latina, 207, col. 1155. 10 Wine, Beere, liquors not uncommon. Thus in the ballad “Sack for my Money,”? of the time of James I, the rivalry of wine and beer is implied through- out. ““We’l sing and laugh, and stoutly quaff. And quite renounce the Alehouse; For Ale and Beer are both now dear, The price is rais’d in either.” The excellency of wine over ale and beer is also maintained by Henry Lawes in a later lyric, and by Thomas Randolph in Aristippus. Nor were the humbler liquors quite without their champions. John Taylor, the Water Poet, thus deplores the present neglect of their homelier virtues: “Bacchus is ador’d and deified And we Hispanialized and Frenchifide, Whil’st Noble Native Ale and Beere’s hard fate Are like old Almanacks, quite out of date.” And Joseph Beaumont makes ale speak in its own defense in his poem entitled “An Answer of Ale to the Challenge of Sack.”*? Water also enters into the controversy in Taylor’s Drinke and Welcome, where it is exalted above ale, wine, and beer, though each of these liquors is elaborately praised each for its special excellence. Beer, because of its supposedly exotic character, suffers by contrast with ale at the hands of Randolph (if the piece be his) in a ballad entitled ‘The High and Mighty Commendation of a Pot of Good Ale.” “Beer is a stranger, a Dutch upstart, come, Whose credit with us sometimes is but small; But in records of the Empire of Rome, The old Catholic drink is a pot of good ale.” With the exception of Aristippus, which has a special relation to our dialogue and is to be considered later, none of these pieces is, strictly speaking, in debate form. They afford the material, however, and 1 Collier, Roxhurghe Ballads, 177; Roxburghe Ballads, ed. Ebsworth, VI, 319. 20 Sandys, Festive Songs (Percy Society), xlii. Cf. also xliv. *1 Quoted by Bickerdyke, Curiosities of Ale and Beer, p.7. 2 Bickerdyke, p. 8. 2 Works, ed. Hazlitt, II, 662. Ale, and Tobacco 11 show a tendency to personify the rival liquors. It is not surprising, therefore, that the question of the relative merits of the beverages should, under the influence of other debates, have flowered into a dramatized dispute.* The tobacco episode, added in the second edition, has behind it a fiercer and more novel controversy. Ever since the introduction of the herb into Europe its merits and demerits had been hotly canvassed by a hundred pens. Learned physicians wrote disquisitions on its medicinal value. Monarchs lost their dignity while inveighing against its vileness. The history of this quarrel is too extensive and too familiar to be recorded here. There are, however, a number of individual tobacco documents which deserve special consideration because of their approximation in one way or another to the present debate. Tobacco not infrequently appears in seventeenth century litera- ture in propria persona. Thus in Lingua, Tobacco makes an elaborate speech in praise of his own virtues. The herb is constantly associated with alcoholic liquors in the literature of the time, as it was, of course, in life, and this association was emphasized by the common use of the term “drink” as applied to the taking of tobacco. Ale and tobacco are praised together in Ravenscroft’s Brief Discourse of Music (1614). Barnabe Riche, in his Honestie of this Age, notes that drinking and smoking almost invariably go together, “for it is a commodity that is now as vendible in every taverne, inne and ale-house, as eyther wine, ale, or beare.”’ It is natural enough, then, that tobacco, the “dry drink,” should appear in literature as a rival of the standard beverages. A ballad in Wit’s Recreation (1640), entitled ““The Tryumph of Tobacco over Sack % “A Dialogue between Claret and Darby Ale; A Poem considered in an accidental conversation between two gentlemen” was printed for E. Richardson in 1691. See Marchant, In Praise of Ale, London, 1888, p. 434, for a reprint. 5 See Arber, English Reprints, Works of James I, 81 ff: On the Introduction and Early U se of Tobacco In England. 12 Wine, Beere, and Ale,’ may well be a recollection of the second form of our dia- logue. An earlier and closer approach to the material and form of our debate is to be found in the antimasque of the Masque of Flowers,”” performed at Gray’s Inn, 1613-14. Here the liquors are represented by Silenus, who enters accompanied by a wine cooper, a vintner’s boy, and a brewer; while the cause of tobacco is championed by Kawasha and his attendants—a skipper, a fencer, a pedler, and a barber. The two leaders jibe at each other and praise themselves in the usual debate manner. Silenus: Kawasha comes in Majestie, Was never such a God as he; He is come from a farre countrey To make our nose a chimney. Kawasha: The wine takes the contrary way, To get into the hood; But good tobacco makes no stay But seizeth where it should. As in Wine, Beere, Ale, and Tobacco, the contestants at length con- clude by making peace and joining in a dance. A thorough canvass of seventeenth-century tobacco literature might yield other precedents for our debate; but for the direct sug- gestion of the réle of Tobacco in the second edition of Wine, Beere, and Ale, we need go no further than the edition of 1629, where the qualities of the weed are made the subject of a discussion between Wine and Sugar.” %6«Nay, soft by your leaves, Tobacco bereaves You both of the garland: forbear it: You are two to one, Yet Tobacco alone Is like both to win it and wear it . For all their bravado It is Trinidado, That both their noses will wipe Of the praises they desire, Unless they conspire To sing to the tune of his fife.” 7 Reprinted Nichols, Progresses of James I, 11, 740-1 and H. A. Evans, English Masques, pp. 100 ff. 38 See footnote on pp. 25 ff. of text. Ale, and Tobacco 13 IV. RELATION oF WINE, BEERE, AND ALE TO CERTAIN CAMBRIDGE ENTERTAINMENTS Apart from its interest as an embodiment in English of the ancient strife of the liquors, Wine, Beere, and Ale possesses a hitherto unob- served significance, arising from its close connection with a little group of debate plays on similar subjects, all of which we know to have been written for performance at the University of Cambridge. This connection, which I have already barely indicated in a previous article, I wish now to consider in some detail. 1. Lingua. The earliest of the Cambridge debate plays in ques- tion is Lingua or the Combat of the Tongue and the Five Senses for Superiority, an elaborate drama composed by Thomas Tomkis of Trinity College, Cambridge, author of Albumazar,” and published in 1607. The precise date of the original production of this piece is uncertain, but there can be no doubt that it was written for academic performance in the early years of the century, and it is probable that it was revived at a somewhat later date. There is a general resemblance in the theme and in the nature of the dramatis personae between this play and Wine, Beere, and Ale. Lingua, however, has an elaborate plot, while our piece is little more than a dialogue. The scene in Lingua is Microcosmus, the kingdom of man’s mind and body. Lingua, who stands for the faculty of speech, stirs up a dissension among the five senses, by means of which she may prosecute her own claim to be enrolled among their number. To this end she allows them to find a robe and crown inscribed like Paris’s apple of discord—‘ to the most worthy.” The senses at once fall to quarrelling and prepare to do battle, Visus and Auditus on the one side, Tactus and Gustus on the other, with Olfactus standing neutral but ready to join the victor. The case is at length submitted to the arbitration of Communis Sensus, who, after the senses have appeared before him in a pageant illustrating the joys that each can give, decides in favor of Visus but consoles the others by awarding them various privileges. Lingua, unlike Tobacco under somewhat similar circumstances, is refused admission to the ranks of the senses, 29 Tomkis’s authorship, which had been conjectured by Fleay on the ground of similarity in style with Albumazar, is proved conclusively by the ascription of the play to Tomkis in a list of plays be- longing to Sir John Harrington, published by Furnivall in Notes and Queries, Ser. 7, [X, 382-3. 14 , Wine, Beere, except in the case of women, who shall hereafter be said to enjoy a sixth sense, that of speech. This decision offers a special point of resemblance with Wine, Beere, and Ale, for, just as Communis Sensus defines the particular place and use of each of the senses, so Parson Water assigns to each of the liquors its “singularity,” as ale for the country, beer for the city, wine for the court. Tobacco, an upstart intruder, demanding a place in the established triumvirate of drinks, plays, as I have sug- gested, a similar réle to that of Lingua in her relation to the senses.* It is noteworthy, also, that Bacchus and Small Beer appear in the train of Gustus, while Tobacco, as Olfactus’s chief witness, extols his own virtues with as little modesty as his namesake in our play. 2. Worke for Cuilers, or a Merry Dialogue betweene Sword, Rapier, and Dagger, and Exchange Ware at Second Hand, or a Merry Dialogue betweene Band, Cuffe, and Ruffe2' These companion pieces, published separately in 1615 and each bearing on its title page the words “acted in a shewe at the famous Universitie of Cambridge” afford a much more striking parallel to Wine, Beere, and Ale, appearing, indeed, to have served as the models for the later piece. Like Wine, Beere, and Ale they are properly debates—wit combats, wars of words, contain- ing only a semblance of action but making up for this deficiency by an unbelievable number of puns and “hits.” The following is a sample passage: “Sword. Nay Rapier, come forth, come forth, I say, Ile give thee a crown, though it be but a crackt one: what wilt not? Art so hard to be drawn forth, Rapier? Rapier. S’foot thou shalt know that Rapier dares enter: nay Back- Sword.” The striking similarity of these three debates in style and spirit suggests very forcibly the idea that they may all be the work of a single hand. Against this we have the probability that Worke for Cuilers and Exchange Ware were written some ten years earlier than. Wine, Beere, and Ale. This, however, is not, on the evidence given % The initial situation in Lingua was doubtless derived from Giorgio Alione’s Comedia de L’Omo e de’ soi Cinque Sentimenti (1521), where the part of Lingua is taken by I] Cul. See Hanford, “The Debate Element in the Elizabethan Drama,” Kittredge Anniversary Papers, 455. 51 Reprinted, Charles Hindley, The Old Book Collector's Miscellany, 1871-1873, vol. II. A critical edition of Worke for Cutlers has been published by Albert F. Sieveking, London, 1904. Ale, and Tobacco 15 above, by any means certain; and if it were, it would not entirely disprove identity of authorship. But if the author of Wine, Beere, and Ale did not himself write the earlier dialogues he certainly imitated them closely. The correspond- ence which we have observed in style extends also to matters of structure. Taking our text as it stands in the first edition, the principal personages match the contestants of the other pieces with sufficient exactness. They are relatives and rivals among liquors just as Sword and Rapier, Band and Cuffe are relatives and rivals in arms and haberdashery. The quarrel for precedence is carried on in much the same way, beginning with angry words and leading up (as in the earlier debates) to a challenge. The issue of a duel is avoided in all three cases by the intervention of a mediator, some character akin to but not quite a rival of the contestants—in the one play Dagger, in another Band, in the third Water. These personages render parallel decisions in almost identical terms. A song in each case follows the reconciliation of the rivals. It is evident, then, that these three debates were modelled on one and the same plan. But whereas Exchange Ware, and Work for Cutlers manifestly correspond at every point, Wine, Beere, and Ale shows an effort to elaborate the material throughout. Thus to the principals, Wine, Beere, and Ale, are added their servants, Sugar, Tost, and Nutmeg, who enjoy a preliminary skirmish before the main dispute. These figures were doubtless suggested by the mention of Collar as Ruffe’s “man” in Exchange Ware. A slight complication is secured in Wine, Beere, and Ale by making Sugar, like Lingua, the mischievous instigator of the broil. The number of principals is also increased from two to three. Wine and Beere begin the brawl and carry it on for some eighty lines in precisely the manner of the earlier debates. Ale, entering just after the challenge, appears at first to be about to play the pacific réle of Band and Dagger, but being already warmed by the mischief-loving Sugar, he is easily drawn into the 32 “Well then, Ruff shall be the most accounted of among the clergy, for he is the graver fellow: although I know the Puritans will not greatly care for him; he hath such a deal of sitting, and they love standing better. As for you, Band, you shall be made the most of amongst the young gallants: al- though sometimes they shall use Ruff for a fashion, but not otherwise,” etc. Exchange Ware. Cf. the decision of Water in the text, lines 373 f., Dagger, in Worke for Cutlers, assigns Sword to the camp and Rapier to the court. 16 Wine, Beere, controversy and the quarrel becomes triangular. The introduction of Water therefore becomes necessary to settle the dispute. The final song is followed by a dance in character. Thus far had the process of elaboration gone in the first form of the play. In the revision it was carried a step farther by the addition of the ludicrous figure of Tobacco with his swaggering manners and his tedious affectations. The idea, suggested perhaps by Lingua, of making this alien and upstart stimulant disrupt the newly established peace and force his way into the comradeship of his betters was an extremely happy and successful one; and it was no doubt largely be- cause of this episode that the second version of our dialogue achieved popularity. 3. Aristippus or the Jovial Philosopher. The Cambridge affilia- tions of Wine, Beere, and Ale are further strengthened by comparison with Thomas Randolph’s Aristippus, the earliest of the farcical inter- ludes composed by Randolph for representation at Cambridge. Here the resemblance is not one of form but of subject matter. The enmity of the drinks, which is the theme of Wine, Beere, and Ale, is central also in Aristippus, though it is somewhat disguised by a more elaborate setting. Simplicissimus comes in his innocence to sit at the feet of the famous Aristippus. He finds the old philosopher’s academy a tavern and the burden of his discourse the praise of wine. ‘If I had a thousand sons,” said Falstaff, “the first humane principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict them- selves to sack.”’ Aristippus is true to the letter and spirit of this creed. As a dramatic figure, indeed, he owes not a little to his jovial predecessor. A wild man, the untutored representative of beer and ale, enters to defend their cause against the philosopher’s abuse, but the ‘‘malt heretic” is driven out and later comes to confess his error. Varied and original as are the elements in Randolph’s composition, it is difficult to believe that he did not derive a suggestion from Wine, Beere, and Ale. Specific resemblances between the two dialogues are _recorded in the notes to the present volume.* The most striking of these is the use by both Randolph and the author of our debate of a Latin epigram from an obscure medieval author. How widely 33 See notes to lines 118, 121, 291, 294, 378, 472, 479. 4 See note to line 381. Ale, and Tobacco 17 these verses were current there is no means of knowing. They are quoted in Camden’s Britannia and in DuCange’s Glossarium but I have not met with them elsewhere. The translations of the lines in the two plays are different and apparently independent. The most reasonable assumption is that the quotation was familiar at this time among Cambridge students and was used in the one dialogue because it had been used in the other. Randolph was presumably the bor- rower, since Wine, Beere, and Ale, as we have seen, was manifestly modelled on an earlier pair of Cambridge interludes. It has occurred to me that Randolph might possibly be the author of both works—he is said to have been very active as an undergraduate in getting up student entertainments—but this conclusion seems on the whole unlikely. Wine, Beere, and Ale, though clever, is quite lacking in the verve and extravagance which characterize all of Randolph’s un- doubted comedies. It is far more probable that he had either seen the piece performed in his early years at Cambridge (he matriculated July, 1624) or became acquainted with it immediately after its pub- lication. Aristippus was entered on the Stationers’ Register March 26, 1630. As the Cambridge session had been suspended since November owing to the plague, the play, if acted at the University, must have been written at least as early as 1629, the year in which Wine, Beere, and Ale was published in its earlier form. While there is no conclusive evidence to show that Wine, Beere, and Ale was written for performance at Cambridge University, such a supposition is, in view of what has already been said regarding its relation to dialogues known to have been of Cambridge origin, very probable. It is a fact that nothing so closely resembling this group— nothing so like the acted debate of John Heywood’s time,—is to be found elsewhere in the Elizabethan or Stuart drama. Debate mater- ial and motives do, indeed, appear with some frequency, but these motives are usually incidental to the play as a whole. In masques, where the contention sometimes constitutes the framework of the piece, the subject is generally allegorical and didactic—the opposition of mythological persons, of virtues and vices, or of other personified abstractions. Perhaps the nearest akin in form and substance tothe Cambridge group are the Oxford debate play, Bellum Grammaticale,® 35 See Johannes Bolte, Andrea Guarnas Bellum Grammaticale und seine Nachahmungen, Monumenta Germaniae Paedagogica, XLIII, where the Elizabethan play is reprinted. 18 Wine, Beere, and the allegorical Pathomachia.** The parts of speech are the inter- locutors in the one; virtues, vices, and the human affections in the other. But while thesé plays have an obvious kinship with Lingua*” they differ from the other debates mentioned, including Wine, Beere, and Ale, in that they have more elaborate plots and depend to a slighter extent upon verbal wit. It is of importance in the present discussion to note that both Bellum Grammaticale and Pathomachia are university performances.*® Pathomachia may, indeed, be ascribed, with a high degree of probability, to Cambridge.*® That entertainments of the debate type should have flourished chiefly in the universities is not surprising. The form afforded a most attractive opportunity for the exercise of wits already ground sharp by the regular academic disputations, which after all differed by no very wide interval from the fictitious debates. The idea of presenting in character, with a dash of action and a spice of humor, controversies akin to those which were every day being debated on the platform, gave added zest to these dramatic performances. It has ever been the delight of the young scholar to mimic his serious academic occupa- tions in play. In Bellum Grammaticale, Pathomachia, and Lingua there is promulgated in a semi-serious way an enormous amount of college lore. Worke for Cutlers, Exchange Ware, Wine, Beere, and Ale, and Aristippus, on the other hand, are purely humorous. Ran- dolph’s work preserves a mock academic atmosphere throughout and the dialogue is littered with the flotsam and jetsam of erudition. Exchange Ware and Worke for Cutlers derive their material from mat- ters of fashion and social life, though each concludes with an academic allusion.” Wine, Beere, and Ale stands in this respect between the %8 Pathomachia, or the Battle of the Affections shadowed by a feigned Siege of the City of Pathopolis, 1630. Reprinted, Edinburgh, 1887 (Collectanea Adamantaea, XXII). 37 See “The Debate Element,” pp. 454-5, Pathomachia appears to have been modelled in part on Lingua, which is alluded to in the text. : 38 For academic allusions in Pathomachia see I, iii and iv; II, ii: IV, iii ete. In addition to the connection with Lingua, pointed out in note 3 above, there is in Pathomachia an allusion to the well-known Cambridge play, Ignoramus, acted before James in 1615. Friendship says to Justice “If I get within your Cony-burrowes, I shall disgrace you like Ignoramus.” The lawyer, Ignoramus, in the play of that name is hoodwinked and disgraced in various ways. Moore- Smith (Modern Language Review, III, 149) is of the opinion that it was written by Tomkis, author of Lingua. 40 But this hee hopes, with you will suffize, To crave a pardon for a Scholars Prize. W. for C. Claw me, and 1’ll claw thee,—the proverb goes: Let it be true, in this that freshman shows. B., C., and R. Ale, and Tobacco 19 other two. Ale’s somewhat formal argument, with his citation of etymology, and his reference to his “Works” as evidence that he is possessed of the “‘liberal sciences,’ Water’s scraps of Latin, and Wine’s quotation from the poets, all combine to give the piece an academic flavor. The general atmosphere, however, as might have been expected from the subject matter, is rather that of the tavern than of the classroom. It might be argued that the one scene no less than the other would have to the academic audience the charm of the familiar. Against the hypothesis of Cambridge authorship we have the absence of any clear and definite local “hits” such as we might expect to find in a college play. But there is surprisingly little of this sort of thing in Lingua, and, save for the two references in the concluding songs, nothing in Worke for Cutlers or Exchange Ware. There are, on the other hand, in Wine, Beere, and Ale one or two allusions to London matters. Thus Tost (line 540) refers to the New River, a canal, dedicated in 1613, which brought water from some twenty miles north of London to a reservoir near Islington, to supply the city: And Water, speaking of the musicians, remarks that they are some friends of his who often “come upon the water.” It must be remem- bered, however, that London references would be perfectly familiar to a Cambridge audience. Assuming that Wine, Beere. and Ale is indeed of Cambridge origin, was it ever acted and, if so, under what conditions and by whom? Mr. G. C. Moore Smith" suggests that Exchange Ware and Worke for Cutlers, being alike so short, were played as interludes in the course of some longer plays performed before King James on his earlier visit to Cambridge in 1615. An imperfect copy of Exchange Ware exists in the manuscript collection of Dramatic Pieces on the Visits of James I to Cambridge. Wéne, Beere, and Ale is but little longer and may have been similarly used.” We know that a comedy and other entertain- ments were prepared for the final visit of James to Cambridge in 1625 41 Notes on Some English U niversity Plays, Modern Language Review, III, 152. #2 Nichols, Progresses of James 1, III, 66, gives the text of “A Cambridge Madrigal sung before the King instead of Interlude music in Ignoramus,” showing that such substitutions were in use. G. C. Moore Smith notes that in the Ratio Smdiorum of the Jesuits there is mention, with tragedies and comedies, of interludes bet ween the acts 20 Wine, Beere, but never given, owing to the illness of the king. Some slight evi- dence that our play was designed for presentation before James is afforded by the earlier tobacco passage, which has little relation to the context but would, as I have already remarked, have been well cal- culated to please King James. Perhaps, on the other hand, the sketch appeared under less reput- able auspices. The less dignified sort of entertainment had not been in high favor with the academic authorities. ‘Common plays, public shews, interludes, comedies, and tragedies in the English tongue” were prohibited in the second year of James I by a royal letter. But the restriction would not appear to have been rigidly enforced. It takes more than a royal ordinance or college edict to prevent stu- dents from indulging in the surreptitious frolics to which they are attached. Unlicensed shows are said by Mullinger to have been frequently performed at neighboring inns. A student was suspended in 1600 for having ventured to take part in an interlude at the “Black Bear,” where he appeared with “deformed long locks of unseemly sight, and great breeches, undecent for a graduate or scholar of ordi- nary carriage.” Worke for Cutlers seems from the allusion in the closing line to have been performed by freshmen. Perhaps Wine, Beere, and Ale was also composed for the less seasoned scholars. Certainly there is nothing in the piece that would be above the acting powers of undergraduates. In any case the play was evidently designed for actual representa- tion.“8 Small touches throughout show that the writer had visualized the action and even the costume of his characters. This would seem to indicate that he had had some experience in writing for the stage. If he had indeed been the author of Worke for Cuilers and its companion piece a few years before, the slightly greater complexity of the action and the superior adaptation to stage purposes in the later dialogue would be amply accounted for. 43 Evidence on this point is to be found in the stage direction at the close of the play. In its earlier form this reads: ““A Daunce, wherein the severall Natures of them all is figured and represented.” In the second edition the description was filled in, either by the author or by someone who was familiar with the stage representation. See lines 677 ff. VV INE, Cea ALE; nek een TAS CCO. eee ie a ree s ot Viale» [oat E na eer oaeeree The &cond Edition,much enlarges.