Thus endeth the iest of Morels skin, Finis quoth Mayfter Charme her. Emprinted at London in Fleete streate, beneath the Conduite, at the signe of S. Lohn Euangelist, by Hugh Eackson. He that can charme a shrewde wyfe Let him come to me, and fetch ten pound, 1 i. e. wrapped. "Sym, Sym, syckerlye Heare I see Marye And Jesus Christe faste by, Lapped in haye." Chester Plays, ed. Wright, i. 137. 2 To charm is here, and in the following line, put satirically for "to subdue into silence." It is used in the same way in a passage in the Marriage of Wit and Science (Sh. Soc. ed. p. 37): "Fall you to kyssyng, syr, now a dayes? Your mother shall charme you, go your wayes." Compare Dyce's Skelton, ii. 114. A and Abuse of Women Now a dayes. TREATYSE shewing and declaring the Pryde and Abuse of Women Now a Dayes. [circa 1550.] 4to, four leaves, [Colophon.] Finis quod Charles Bansley. Imprinted at London in Paules Church yearde, at the Sygne of the Starre, by Thomas Raynalde." This and Gosson's Pleasant Quippes for Upstart Gentlewomen were the two tracts which the Percy Society printed for distribution, but never issued, on account of their objectionable contents. The reason which influenced the editor in admitting this piece into his collection, after so marked a condemnation by a literary committee, were, firstly, a desire to render this series of pamphlets published against the female sex during the sixteenth century as complete as possible; and, secondly, a confidence that the class of readers to whom the LIBRARY OF OLD AUTHORS chiefly addresses itself, will not treat a few expressions, which the changes of manners and ways of thinking have brought into disrepute, as an insult to their moral sensibility, or as a lure to depravity. The reader may be assured that, in the following production by Bansley, he will find nothing coarser than occurs at every other page of Jonson's Plays or Durfey's Songs, or than in the greater part of the contents of the young ladies' music books in fashion a century or so ago. Of Bansley no account seems to be preserved beyond what is to be collected from a hint or two found in his only known effort of a literary kind. A curious illustration of the state of morality twenty years after Bansley's publication occurs in Mr. Collier's new edition of the Bridgewater Catalogue, 1865, ii. 74, 5. The only copy of the present piece known was formerly in the library of Lincoln Cathedral. It was procured of the Dean and Chapter in exchange (with many other things) by Dibdin, who gave them modern books instead. Dibdin sold it to Mr. Heber, and it is now probably at Britwell. |