34 KEMP'S THREAT TO HIS DEFAULTERS.

W. Kemp. LApril 1600.

True it is, I put out some money to have threefold gain at my return [i.e., he accepted bets of Three to One that he could not dance this Morris to Norwich]. Some that love me, regard my pains and respect their promise, [and] have sent home the treble worth. Some others, at the first sight, have paid me, if I came to seek them. Others I cannot see, nor will they be willingly found! and these are the greater number.

If they had all used me well; or all, ill: I would have boldly set down the true sum of my small gain or loss! but I will have patience some few days longer.

At the end of which time, if any be behind, I will draw a Catalogue of all their names I ventured with. Those that have shewn themselves honest men; I will set before them this character, H. for Honesty. Before the other benchwhistlers shall stand K. for Ketlers or Keistrels, that will drive a good companion, without need in them, to contend for his own. But I hope I shall have no such need!

If I have, your honourable protection shall thus far defend your poor servant, that he may, being a plain man, call a spade a spade.

Thus, fearing your Ladyship is wearier with reading this toy than I was in all my merry travail; I crave pardon! and conclude this first pamphlet that ever WILL. KEMP offered to the Press: being thereunto pressed on the one side by the pitiful papers pasted on every post, of that which was neither so, nor so; and, on the other side, urged thereto in duty, to express with thankfulness the kind entertainment I found.

Your Honour's poor servant,

W. K.

3

KEMP's humble request to the impudent generation of Ballad-makers and their coherents, that it would please their Rascalities to pity his pains in the great journey he pretends [intends]; and not fill the country with lies of bis never-done acts, as they did in his late Morrice to Norwich.

To the tune of THOMAS DELONEY's Epitaph. MY NOTABLE SHAKE-RAGS!

HE effect of my suit is discovered in the title of my Supplication.

But for your better understandings, for that I know you to be a sort of witless beetle-heads that can understand nothing but what is knocked into your scalps,

These are, by these presents, to certify unto your Blockheadships, that I, WILLIAM KEMP, whom you had near[ly] hand-rent in sunder, with your unreasonable rhymes, and shortly, GOD willing! to set forward (as merrily as I may), whither, I myself know not!

Wherefore, by the way, I would wish ye! employ not your little wits in certifying the world that I am gone to Rome, Jerusalem, Venice, or any other place at your idle appoint. I know, the best of ye, by the lies ye wrote of me, got not the price of a good hat to cover your brainless heads! If any of ye had come to me, my bounty should have exceeded the best of your good masters, the ballad buyers! I would have apparelled your dry pates in parti-coloured bonnets!:

36 DEATH OF THOMAS DELONEY. W. Kemp.

LApril 1600.

and bestowed a leash of my cast[-off] bells to have crowned ye, with coxcombs !

I have made a privy search, what private Jigmonger of your jolly number hath been the Author of these abominable Ballets written of me.

I was told, it was the great Ballad-maker, T. D., alias THOMAS DELONEY, Chronicler of the memorable Lives of the Six yeomen of the West, JACK of Newbury, the Gentle Craft, &c., and such like honest men, omitted by STOW, HOLLINSHED, GRAFTON, HALLE, FROISSART, and all the rest of those well-deserving writers.

But I was given since to understand, your late General, THOMAS, died poorly (as ye all must do!), and was honestly buried, which is much to be doubted of some of you! [This fixes DELONEY's death about March, 1600.]

The Quest [inquest] of Inquiry finding him, by death acquitted of the Indictment; I was let to wit, that another Lord of Little Wit, one whose employment for the Pageant was utterly spent, he being known to be ELDERTON's immediate heir, was vehemently suspected: but, after due inquisition was made, he was at that time known to live like a man in a mist, having quite given over the mystery.

Still the Search continuing, I met a proper upright youth, only for a little stooping in the shoulder, all heart to the heel, a penny Poet; whose first making [ballad] was the miserable stolen story of MACDOEL, or MACDOBETH, or MAC-somewhat: for I am sure a MAC it was, though I never had the maw to see it and he told me there was a fat filthy Ballet-maker that should have once been his journeyman to the trade, who lived about the town; and, ten to one! but he had thus terribly abused me and my Tabourer, for that he was able to do such a thing in print. A shrewd presumption!

I found him about the Bankside, sitting at a play. I desired to speak with him, had him to a tavern, charged [i.e., for him] a pipe with tobacco, and then laid this terrible accusation to his charge. He swells presently like one of

W. Kemp.

Apr100] KEMP'S HUNT AFTER THE BALLAD-MAKER. 37

the four winds. The violence of his breath blew the tobacco out of the pipe, and the heat of his wrath drank dry two bowls of Rhenish wine.

At length having power to speak, "Name my accuser!" saith he, "or I defie thee, KEMP! at the quart[er] staff!"

I told him! and all his anger turned to laughter; swearing "it did him good to have ill words of a hoddy doddy! a habber de hoy! [? hobbledehoy], a chicken! a squib! a squall! One that hath not wit enough to make a ballet; that by POL and AEDIPOL would Pol his father, Derick his dad! do anything, how ill soever, to please his apish

humour!"

I hardly believed this youth, that I took to be gracious, had been so graceless; but I heard, afterwards, his motherin-law was eye-and ear-witness of his father's abuse, by this blessed child, on a public Stage, in "a merry Host of an Inn's" part.

Yet all this while, could not I find out the true ballet maker; till, by chance, a friend of mine pulled out of his pocket, a book in Latin, called Mundus furiosus, printed at Cullen [Cologne], written by one of the vilest and arrantest lying cullians [wretches] that ever wrote book; his name JANSONUS: who, taking upon him to write an abstract of all the turbulent actions that had been lately attempted or performed in Christendom, like an unchristian wretch! writes only by report, partially, and scoffingly of such whose page's shoes he was unworthy to wipe. For indeed he is now dead. Farewell, he! every dog must have a day!

But see the luck on it! This beggarly lying busybody's name brought out the Ballad-maker [? RICHARD JOHNSON]! and it was generally confirmed it was his kinsman! He confesses himself guilty, let any man look on his face! if there be not so red a colour that all the soap in the town will not wash white, let me be turned into a whiting, as I pass between Dover and Calais !

Well, GOD forgive thee, honest fellow!

38

KEMP IS GOING ON THE CONTINENT.

April 1600.

W. Kemp.

I see, thou hast grace in thee! I prithee, do so no more! Leave writing these beastly ballets! make not good wenches, Prophetesses for little or no profit! nor for a sixpenny matter, revive not a poor fellow's fault that is hanged for his offence! it may be thine own destiny, one day: prithee, be good to them!

Call up, thy old MELPOMENE! whose strawberry quill may write the bloody lines of the blue Lady, and the Prince of the burning crown: a better subject I can tell ye! than your Knight of the Red Cross. So farewell! and cross me no more, prithee! with thy rabble of bald rhymes, least at my return, I set a cross

on thy forehead, that all

men may know thee

for a fool!

WILLIAM KEMP.

FINIS.

I