said it ought to be printed privately and left
behind me when I died, and then my fame as a literary artist would
last."

FRANKLIN J. MEINE

THE FIRST PRINTING Verbatim Reprint

[Date, 1601.]

CONVERSATION, AS IT WAS BY THE SOCIAL FIRESIDE, IN THE TIME OF THE
TUDORS.

[Mem.--The following is supposed to be an extract from the
diary of the Pepys of that day, the same being Queen
Elizabeth's cup-bearer. He is supposed to be of ancient and
noble lineage; that he despises these literary canaille;
that his soul consumes with wrath, to see the queen stooping
to talk with such; and that the old man feels that his
nobility is defiled by contact with Shakespeare, etc., and
yet he has got to stay there till her Majesty chooses to
dismiss him.]

YESTERNIGHT toke her maiste ye queene a fantasie such as she sometimes
hath, and had to her closet certain that doe write playes, bokes, and
such like, these being my lord Bacon, his worship Sir Walter Ralegh,
Mr. Ben Jonson, and ye child Francis Beaumonte, which being but sixteen,
hath yet turned his hand to ye doing of ye Lattin masters into our
Englishe tong, with grete discretion and much applaus. Also came with
these ye famous Shaxpur. A righte straunge mixing truly of mighty blode
with mean, ye more in especial since ye queenes grace was present, as
likewise these following, to wit: Ye Duchess of Bilgewater, twenty-two
yeres of age; ye Countesse of Granby, twenty-six; her doter, ye Lady
Helen, fifteen; as also these two maides of honor, to-wit, ye Lady
Margery Boothy, sixty-five, and ye Lady Alice Dilberry, turned seventy,
she being two yeres ye queenes graces elder.

I being her maites cup-bearer, had no choice but to remaine and beholde
rank forgot, and ye high holde converse wh ye low as uppon equal termes,
a grete scandal did ye world heare thereof.

In ye heat of ye talk it befel yt one did breake wind, yielding an
exceding mightie and distresfull stink, whereat all did laugh full sore,
and then--

Ye Queene.--Verily in mine eight and sixty yeres have I not heard the
fellow to this fart. Meseemeth, by ye grete sound and clamour of it,
it was male; yet ye belly it did lurk behinde shoulde now fall lean and
flat against ye spine of him yt hath bene delivered of so stately and
so waste a bulk, where as ye guts of them yt doe quiff-splitters
bear, stand comely still and rounde. Prithee let ye author confes