MALKIN (_passim_), slut, slattern, strumpet: originally a typical name for a woman of the lower classes. Hence many colloquial and proverbial expressions--"no man desireth _Malkin's_ maidenhead"; "mo maids than _Malkin_"; "an old mother _Malkin's_ talk"; "_Malkin_, the May lady" (Maid Marian); a "carter's or swineherd's _Malkin_"; "some gentleman-swallowing (= whorish) _Malkin_"; "a kitchen _Malkin_"; "trapish ... petticoats to heels like a _Malkin_," etc. MALL, "this _mall_ shall beat him to dust" (WS142,_c_), a club; usually of hard wood. "A leaden _maule_, or suche lyke weapon, to beate downe his enemyes withall."--Ascham, _Toxoph._ (1545), 70 (Arber). MANKIND. The text is given on pp. 1-40. This curious picture of real life and ne'er-do-weels in late Plantagenet and early Tudor times is one of the unique Macro plays, and existed, until quite recently, in manuscript only. With this manuscript and its history I have dealt fully in another part of this volume (_see_ Macro Plays and MSS.). During the last ten years _Mankind_ has been three times reprinted--by Dr. Brandl (_Quellen_, etc., 1904), by Prof. Manly (_Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean_ _Drama_, 1904), and by the _Early English Text Society_ (Extra Series xci, 1904). The last-named text in all probability more nearly approaches fidelity to the original than the others; but as the amanuensis, to all appearance, was the same for all three, and was responsible for the confessedly untrustworthy texts which Dr. Brandl and Prof. Manly have been compelled to use without an opportunity of a new collation with the original manuscript, one cannot but entertain some misgiving as to the accuracy of the Early English Text Society's version. Especially is this the case in view of the fact that, so far as I can learn, the E.E. text, as set by the printers from the copy supplied to them, does not seem to have been compared with the original MS. The manifold errors too, alike in the otherwise admirable introductory sketches, in the footnotes, and in the glossary, are not reassuring. Quotation after quotation, reference after reference, are incorrectly given. For example, in # 2, pp. xi.-xix., there are no less than twelve errors of this description that have casually come to my notice; while, having occasion to use the glossary references more frequently, I have found its usefulness much more largely impaired. Taking a column here and there at random, these are the results:--page 196, col. 1, 2 errors; 199, col. 2, 1 error; 200, col. 2, 5 references wrong; 210, col. 1, 4 errors. Why, too, Monk _Hyngston_ (xix.) instead of _Hyngham_? And, in reference to this strange inaccuracy, I must add that the same Society's edition of _Respublica_ is no better; indeed, it is worse! One page alone of the Notes (p. 66) contains no