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Ancient planters, Smith's men, Dale's men, tenants and servants, women and children, including the little eyases we imported the year before, negroes, Paspaheghs, French vignerons, Dutch sawmill men, Italian glassworkers, all seethed to and fro, all talked at once, and all looked down the river. Out of the babel of voices these words came to us over and over: "The Spaniard!" "The Inquisition!"

Rosencrantz in the second act of Hamlet bears witness to the popularity of these boy actors, when he calls them "little eyases, that cry on the top of question and are most tyrannically clapped for it." Ben Jonson's touching lyrical epitaph on a boy actor, Salathiel Pavy, who had for "three fill'd zodiacs" been "the stage's jewel," shows how highly the Elizabethans sometimes regarded boy actors.

It will be rejoined, of course, that he was an altogether envious man; that he envied Shakspeare, girded at his York and Lancaster plays, at 'The Winter's Tale' and 'The Tempest, in the prologue to 'Every Man in his Humour'; and, indeed, Jonson's writings, and those of many other playwrights, leave little doubt that stage rivalry called out the bitterest hatred and the basest vanity; and that, perhaps, Shakspeare's great soul was giving way to the pettiest passions, when in 'Hamlet' he had his fling at the 'aiery of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question, and are most tyrannically clapped for 't. It may be that he was girding in return at Jonson, when he complained that 'their writer did them wrong to make them complain against their own succession, i.e. against themselves, when 'grown to common players. Be that as it may.

"Why then, I must needs, if I live to see that day, keep on feeding the eyases with unwashed flesh," said Woodcock sturdily, as if doubting the reception that his request might meet with.

Innocent children, moreover, were made to act such satires: 'little eyases, that cry out on the top of the question, and are most tyrannically clapped for't: these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages. The play is preceded by a Latin Dedication to Ben Jonson, which sufficiently shows that a close friendship must have existed, at that time, between the two.

"Nay, interrupt me not," said the falconer "Satan was a good nag But I say I think I shall call the two eyases after you, the one Roland, and the other Graeme; and while Adam Woodcock lives, be sure you have a friend Here is to thee, my dear son." Roland most heartily returned the grasp of the hand, and Woodcock, having taken a deep draught, continued his farewell speech.

Why, man, an you had hit me a rough blow, maybe I would rather have taken it from you, than a rough word from another; for you have a good notion of falconry, though you stand up for washing the meat for the eyases. So give us your hand, man, and bear no malice." Roland, though he felt his proud blood rebel at the familiarity of honest Adam's address, could not resist its downright frankness.

But that is all over now a murrain on the nest, and the eyases and their food, washed or unwashed, for it was all anon of cramming these worthless kites that I was sent upon my present travels. Save that I have met with you, pretty sister, I could eat my dagger-hilt for vexation at my own folly. But, as we are to be fellow-travellers "

"That," said the falconer, "is a question I cannot answer; but I know, that be the food of the eyases washed or unwashed, and, indeed, whatever becomes of perch and mew, I am to go with you to Edinburgh, and see you safely delivered to the Regent at Holyrood." "How, to the Regent?" said Roland, in surprise.

Paul's gave rise to backbiting gossip of being pourtrayed in the 'Rose, in the 'Curtain, or in the theatres of the 'little eyases, in such a manner that people were able, in the streets, to point them out with their fingers. Like so many other novelties, this kind of comedy, too, may for a while have found its admirers.