ragrant gloom, so pray you seeke ye further.

Ye Queene.--Mayhap ye Lady Margery hath done ye companie this favor?

Lady Margery.--So please you madam, my limbs are feeble wh ye weighte and
drouth of five and sixty winters, and it behoveth yt I be tender unto
them. In ye good providence of God, an' I had contained this wonder,
forsoothe wolde I have gi'en 'ye whole evening of my sinking life to ye
dribbling of it forth, with trembling and uneasy soul, not launched it
sudden in its matchless might, taking mine own life with violence,
rending my weak frame like rotten rags. It was not I, your maisty.

Ye Queene.--O' God's name, who hath favored us? Hath it come to pass yt
a fart shall fart itself? Not such a one as this, I trow. Young Master
Beaumont--but no; 'twould have wafted him to heaven like down of goose's
boddy. 'Twas not ye little Lady Helen--nay, ne'er blush, my child;
thoul't tickle thy tender maidenhedde with many a mousie-squeak before
thou learnest to blow a harricane like this. Wasn't you, my learned and
ingenious Jonson?

Jonson.--So fell a blast hath ne'er mine ears saluted, nor yet a stench
so all-pervading and immortal. 'Twas not a novice did it, good your
maisty, but one of veteran experience--else hadde he failed of
confidence. In sooth it was not I.

Ye Queene.--My lord Bacon?

Lord Bacon.-Not from my leane entrailes hath this prodigy burst forth, so
please your grace. Naught doth so befit ye grete as grete performance;
and haply shall ye finde yt 'tis not from mediocrity this miracle hath
issued.

[Tho' ye subjoct be but a fart, yet will this tedious sink of learning
pondrously phillosophize. Meantime did the foul and deadly stink pervade
all places to that degree, yt never smelt I ye like, yet dare I not to
leave ye presence, albeit I was like to suffocate.]

Ye Queene.--What saith ye worshipful Master Shaxpur?

Shaxpur.--In the great hand of God I stand and so proclaim mine
innocence. Though ye sinless hosts of heaven had foretold ye coming of
this most desolating breath, proclaiming it a work of uninspired man, its
quaking thunders, its firmament-clogging rottenness his own achievement
in due course of nature, yet had not I believed it; but had said the pit
itself hath furnished forth the stink, and heaven's artillery hath shook
the globe in admiration of it.

[Then was there a silence, and each did turn him toward the worshipful
Sr Walter Ralegh, that browned, embattled, b