e
to Oxford to Friar Bacon. O! he is a brave scholar, sirrah; they say he
is a brave necromancer, that he can make women of devils, and he can
juggle cats into coster-mongers." Further on in the same play a devil
and Miles, Bacon's servant, enter.

_Miles._ A scholar, quoth you; marry, Sir, I would I had been a
bottle maker, when I was made a scholar, for I can get neither to
be a deacon, reader, nor schoolmaster. No, not the clerk of the
parish. Some call me dunce, another saith my head is full of Latin,
as an egg's full of oatmeal: thus I am tormented that the devil and
Friar Bacon haunt me. Good Lord, here's one of my master's devils!
I'll go speak to him. What Master Plutus, how cheer you?

_D._ Dost know me?

_M._ Know you, Sir? Why are not you one of my master's devils, that
were wont to come to my master, Doctor Bacon at Brazen-Nose?

_D._ Yes, marry am I.

_M._ Good Lord, Master Plutus, I have seen you a thousand times at
my master's; and yet I had never the manners to make you drink.
But, Sir, I am glad to see how comformable you are to the statutes.
I warrant you he's as yeomanly a man as you shall see; mark you,
masters, here's a plain honest man without welt or guard. But I
pray you Sir, do you come lately from hell?

_D._ Ay, marry, how then?

_M._ Faith, 'tis a place I have desired long to see: have you not
good tippling houses there? May not a man have a lusty fire there,
a good pot of ale, a pair of cards, a swinging piece of chalk, and
a brown toast that will clap a white waistcoat on a cup of good
drink.

_D._ All this you may have there.

_M._ You are for me, friend, and I am for you. But I pray you, may
I not have an office there?

_D._ Yes, a thousand; what wouldst thou be?

_M._ By my troth, Sir, in a place where I may profit myself. I know
hell is a hot place, and men are marvellous dry, and much drink is
spent there. I would be a tapster.

In one play Greene introduces a court-fool, and he mixes with the
stupidity and knavery of his clowns, a sort of artificial philosophy
and argumentative ingenuity, which savours much of the old jesters. In
"James the Fourth" Slipper says:--

O mistress, mistress, may I turn a word upon you?

_Countess._ Friend, what wilt thou?

_Slipper._ O! what a happy gentlewoman be you truly;