Kemps Nine Daies Wonder | Page 2

in the prefatory Address to a very rare tract called A Search for Money, &c., 1609, 4to.:--"Yee haue beene either eare or eye-witnesses or both to many madde voiages made of late yeares, both by sea and land, as the trauell to Rome with the returne in certaine daies, the wild morrise to Norrige," &c. And Brathwait in Remains after Death, &c. 1618, 12mo. has the following lines:--
"Vpon Kempe and his morice, with his Epitaph.
"Welcome from Norwich, Kempe! all ioy to see Thy safe returne moriscoed lustily. But out, alasse, how soone's thy morice done! When Pipe and Taber, all thy friends be gone, And leaue thee now to dance the second part With feeble nature, not with nimble Art; Then all thy triumphs fraught with strains of mirth Shall be cag'd vp within a chest of earth: Shall be? they are: th'ast danc'd thee out of breath, And now must make thy parting dance with death."[viii:3]
Towards the end of a Nine daies wonder, Kemp announces his intention of setting out shortly on a "great journey;"[ix:1] but as no record of this second feat has come down to us, we may conclude that it was never accomplished.[ix:2]
The date of his death has not been determined. Malone, in the uncertainty on this point, could only adduce the following passage of Dekker's Guls Horne-booke, 1609, from which, he says, "it may be presumed"[ix:3] that Kemp was then deceased: "Tush, tush, Tarleton, Kemp, nor Singer, nor all the litter of fooles that now come drawling behinde them, neuer plaid the Clownes more naturally then the arrantest Sot of you all."[ix:4] George Chalmers, however, discovered an entry in the burial register of St. Saviour's, Southwark--"1603, November 2d William Kempe, a man;"[ix:5] and since the name of Kemp does not occur in the license granted by King James, 19th May, 1603, to the Lord Chamberlain's Company (who in consequence of that instrument were afterwards denominated his Majesty's Servants) there is great probability that the said entry relates to the comedian, and that he had been carried off by the plague of that year.
Two scenes of two early dramas, which exhibit Kemp in propria persona, must necessarily form a portion of the present essay. The Retvrne from Pernassvs: Or The Scourge of Simony. Publiquely acted by the Students in Saint Johns Colledge in Cambridge, 1606,[x:1] 4to. furnishes the first extract:
"Act 4. Scen. 5. [3.]
[Enter] Burbage [and] Kempe.
"Bur. Now, Will Kempe, if we can intertaine these schollers at a low rate, it wil be well; they haue oftentimes a good conceite in a part.
"Kempe. Its true indeed, honest Dick; but the slaues are somewhat proud, and, besides, it is a good sport, in a part to see them neuer speake in their walke but at the end of the stage, iust as though in walking with a fellow we should neuer speake but at a stile, a gate, or a ditch, where a man can go no further. I was once at a Comedie in Cambridge, and there I saw a parasite make faces and mouths of all sorts on this fashion.
"Bur. A little teaching will mend these faults, and it may bee, besides, they will be able to pen a part.
"Kemp. Few of the vniuersity pen plaies well; they smell too much of that writer Ouid, and that writer Metamorphosis,[xi:1] and talke too much of Proserpina and Juppiter. Why, heres our fellow Shakespeare puts them all downe, I,[xi:2] and Ben Jonson too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow! he brought vp Horace giuing the Poets a pill,[xi:3] but our fellow Shakespeare hath giuen him a purge that made him beray his credit.
"Bur. Its a shrewd fellow indeed. I wonder these schollers stay so long; they appointed to be here presently that we might try them: oh, here they come.
[Enter Philomusus and Studioso.]
"Stud. Take heart, these lets[xi:4] our clouded thoughts refine; The sun shines brightest when it gins decline.
"Bur. M[aster] Phil. and M. Stud., God saue you.
"Kemp. M. Pil. and M. Otioso, well met.
"Phil. The same to you, good M. Burbage. What, M. Kempe, how doth the Emperour of Germany?
"Stud. God saue you, M. Kempe; welcome, M. Kempe, from dancing the morrice ouer the Alpes.[xi:5]
"Kemp. Well, you merry knaues, you may come to the honor of it one day: is it not better to make a foole of the world as I haue done, then to be fooled of the world as you schollers are? But be merry, my lads: you haue happened vpon the most excellent vocation in the world for money; they come North and South to bring it to our playhouse; and for honours, who of more report then Dick Burbage and Will Kempe? he is not counted a Gentleman that knowes not Dick Burbage and Wil Kempe; there's not a country