"_Cob._ We the townes men of Goteham, Hearing your Grace would come this way, Did thinke it good for you to stay-- But hear you, neighbours, bid somebody ring the bels-- And we are come to you alone, To deliuer our petition. "_Kin._ What is it, Perin? I pray thee reade. "_Per._ Nothing but to haue a license to brew strong Ale thrise a week, and he that comes to Goteham and will not spende a penie on a pot of Ale if he be a drie, that he may fast. "_Kin._ Well, sirs, we grant your petition. "_Cob._ We humblie thanke your royall Maiesty. "_King._ Come, Dunston, lets away. _Exeunt omnes._"[xxiv:1] Like the pieces already noticed, "Kemps applauded Merrimentes of the men of Goteham" have been inserted in the catalogue of his "works."[xxiv:2] But surely the words of the title-page mean nothing more than 'merriments in which Kemp had been applauded;' and since it is not easy to imagine that the scene, as preserved in the printed copy, could have been received with any unusual degree of approbation even by the rudest audience, the probability is, that he enlivened his part,[xxv:1] not only by his ever-welcome buffoonery, but also by sundry speeches of extemporal humour: see a passage in _The Travailes of The three English Brothers_, cited at p. xv. There can be no doubt that Kemp figured in other "merrimentes" besides those "of the men of Goteham," though they have not descended to our times: "But," says Nash to Gabriel Harvey, "by the meanes of his [Greene's] death thou art depriued of the remedie in lawe which thou intendedst to haue had against him for calling thy Father Ropemaker. Mas, thats true, what Action will it beare? _Nihil pro nihilo_, none in law; what it will doe vpon the stage I cannot tell, for there a man maye make action besides his part, when he hath nothing at all to say: and if there, it is but a clownish action that it will beare; for what can bee made of a Ropemaker more than a Clowne? Will Kempe, I mistrust it will fall to thy lot for a _merriment_ one of these dayes." _Strange Newes, Of the intercepting certaine Letters_, &c. 1592.[xxv:2] I have only to add, that the present edition of the _Nine daies wonder_ exhibits faithfully the text of the original 4to, which is preserved in the Bodleian Library,[xxvi:1] and which Gifford declared to be "a great curiosity, and, as a rude picture of national manners, extremely well worth reprinting."[xxvi:2] A. DYCE. FOOTNOTES: [v:1] Heywood's _Apology for Actors_, Sig. E 2, 1612, 4to.--Tarlton died in Sept. 1588. A tract by Nash, entitled _An Almond for a Parrat_, n. d. but published about 1589, is dedicated "To that most Comicall and conceited Caualeire Monsieur du Kempe, Jestmonger and Vice-gerent generall to the Ghost of Dicke Tarlton." [v:2]