scandalous, or offensive passages be brought upon the stage, but such onely shalbe there had and used, as may consist with harmeless and inoffensive delights and recreations.

"And theis our Letters Patents, or the inrollment thereof, shalbe in all things good and effectuall in the law, according to the true intent and meaneing of the same, anything in theis presents conteined, or any law, statute, act, ordinance, proclamation, provision, or restriction, or any other matter, cause, or thing whatsoever to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding, although express mention &c.

"In witness, &c. xxxth day of March.

Witness ourselfe at Westminster, the

"Per BRE. DE PRIVATO SIGILLO."

ART. XX.-On the word "Scamels," in Shakespeare's
"Tempest."

Shakespeare in his play of the "Tempest," act ii., scene 2, makes Caliban say,

"I pr'ythee, let me bring thee where crabs grow;
And I with my long nails will dig thee pig-nuts;
Show thee a jay's nest, and instruct thee how
To snare the nimble marmozet; I'll bring thee
To clustering filberds; and sometimes I'll get thee
Young scamels from the rock."

Now the above mentioned word "scamels" has been altered to sea-mells in some late editions,1 under the idea that it means those sea-gulls which are called sea-mells, sea-malls, sea-maws, But the question is whether the allusion is to those birds or to the ancient British word samol, which is referred to in the Rev. Mr. Whitaker's "History of Manchester," vol. ii., p. 130, as follows:

or sea-mews.

"We have three or four plants pointed out to us by the ancients, that were peculiarly the favourites of the Druids. One was what they denominated the samol, and which has been very differently interpreted, as the botanical mind had no standard of determination, but was probably, as the L and the R are frequently interchanged, the seamar, or wild trefoil, to which the Irish Britons pay a particular attention at present, wearing it in their hats on St. Patrick's day under the diminutive appellation of seamrog. This was esteemed an excellent remedy for all the diseases of their droves and herds, if it was bruised and then mingled with the water that the cattle drank. But when it was gathered in the swamps where it grew, it was

1 See the note to Knight's edition.

constantly plucked by the left hand alone; and the simpler was fasting, never looked back while he gathered it, and deposited it no where till he put it into the watering-troughs.'

I merely throw this out as a conjecture, as perhaps much may be said for and against both interpretations.

Lower Wick, Worcester,

May 22, 1847.

JABEZ ALLIES.

1 Pliny, lxxiv., c. 11.

ART. XXI.—A Poem containing notices of Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Massinger, &c.

The following curious poem is extracted from a very scarce little volume, entitled, "Choyce Drollery, Songs, and Sonnets, being a collection of divers excellent pieces of poetry of severall eminent authors, never before printed," 12mo., London, 1656. Only two copies of this work have occurred at sales: Heber's fetched £6 168. 6d. ; see Bibl. Heberiana, part iv., p. 90.

On the Time-Poets.

One night, the great Apollo, pleas'd with Ben,
Made the odde number of the Muses ten;
The fluent Fletcher, Beaumont rich in sense,
In complement and courtships quintessence ;
Ingenious Shakespeare; Massinger, that knowes
The strength of plot to write in verse and prose,
Whose easie Pegassus will amble ore
Some threescore miles of fancy in an houre;
Cloud-grapling Chapman, whose aerial minde
Soares at philosophy, and strikes it blinde;
Daubourn I had forgot, and let it be,
He dy'd Amphibion by the ministry;
Silvester Bartas, whose translatique part
Twinn'd or was elder to our laureat ;
Divine composing Quarles, whose lines aspire'

The April of all poesy in May,

Who makes our English speak Pharsalia;

Sands metamorphos'd so into another,

We know not Sands and Ovid from each other;
He that so well on Scotus play'd the man,
The famous Diggs, or Leonard Claudian ;

1 A line is here wanting in the original.

The pithy Daniel, whose salt lines afford
A weighty sentence in each little word;
Heroick Draiton, Withers, smart in rime-
The very poet-beadles of the time;

Pann's pastorall Brown, whose infant muse did squeak
At eighteen yeares better than others speak;
Shirley, the morning child, the muses bred,
And sent him born with bayes upon his head;
Deep in a dump John Ford alone was got,
With folded armes and melancholly hat;
The squibbing Middleton, and Haywood sage,
Th' apologetick atlas of the stage;

Well of the Golden Age he could intreat,

But little of the mettal he could get;

Threescore sweet babes he fashion'd from the lump,
For he was christ'ned in Parnassus' pump;

The Muses gossip to Aurora's bed,

And ever since that time his face was red.
Thus through the horrour of infernall deeps,
With equal pace, each of them softly creeps,
And, being dark, they had Alector's torch,
And that made Churchyard follow from his porch,
Poor, ragged, torn, and tackt, alack, alack,
You'd think his clothes were pinn'd upon his back;

The whole frame hung with pins, to mend which clothes,

In mirth they sent him to old father Prose:

Of these sad poets, this way ran the stream,
And Decker followed after in a dream;

Rounce, Robble, Hobble, he that writ so high big,
Basse for a ballad, John Shank for a jig:
Sent by Ben Johnson, as some authors say,
Broom went before, and kindly swept the way;
Old Chaucer welcomes them unto the green,
And Spencer brings them to the Fairy Queen;