The common sort.

CHAPMAN (Alphonsus iv. 3.) 1636-1654.

The baser sort.

ANON (Selimus) 1594.

The vulgar, liberal of their tongues.

KYD (Spanish Tragedy III. 14.) 1594-1602.

The base vulgar.

SPENSER (Tears of Muses) 1591.

The natural depravity and malignant disposition of the vulgar.

BACON (Wisdom of Ancients) 1609.

The vulgar, mad and rude

Repay good with ingratitude.

KYD (Cornelia IV. I.) 1595.

Cornelia is a translation from the French. The original text reads simply -"le peuple," but like Bacon, Kyd disliked the word "people" and embittered it into "the vulgar, mad and rude. Beast with many heads.

BACON (Charge against TALBOT) 1614. He himself stuck not to call us the many headed multitude.

SHAKESPEARE (Coriolanus 11. 3.) 1623. O this many headed multitude, 'tis a hard matter to please them!

ANON (Lingua II. 3) 1607.

Monster with many heads.

BACON (Conference of Pleasure) 1592.

Beast with many heads.

SHAKESPEARE (Coriolanus IV. 1.) 1623. Was ever feather so lightly blown to fro as this multitude?

SHAKESPEARE (Henry VI. iv. 8) 1623.

The vulgar who are always swelling and rising against their rulers, and endeavouring at changes.

BACON (Wisdom of the Ancients) 1609.

This same many headed beast the people, violent and so non-constant in affections, subject to love of novelty.

CHAPMAN (Revenge for Honour 11. 1.) 1654. Beast with many heads.... the inconstant people. MARSTON (Malcontent 11. 3. and v. 3.) 1604.

That wild beast multitude.

DEKKER (Old Fortunatus) 1600.

Will that wide throated beast, the multitude, never cease bellowing ?... This forked rabble with their infectious acclamations.

MIDDLETON (Mayor of Quinborough 1. 1.) 1661. Many headed monster multitude.

1

MASSINGER (Emperor of the East II. 1.).

This wild monster multitude.

1630-1632.

FORD (Perkin Warbeck 11. 1.) 1634.

Th'ignoble multitude inflamed with madness.

NABBES (Microcosmos v.) 1637.

The credulous beast the multitude. BEAUMONT & FLETCHER (Beggars' Bush 1. 1.) 1622-1647. The vulgar sort that still are led with every light report.

SPENSER (Fairy Queen IV. 1.) 1590-1609.

I In the Republic (1x, 588) the human soul is compared to a multitudinous many headed monster. The Stoic, Ariston of Chios, calls the people a πολυκέφαλον θηρίον Hence Horace's belua multorum capitum (Epist. I. I. 76). Shakespeare's Books. (Anders,) p. 276.

This green and soggy multitude.

BEN JONSON (Every man out of his Humour III. 3.) 1599-1600. Lousy, impudent multitude, a many headed and many horned generation.

SHIRLEY (The Traitor) 1631-1635.

The great herd, the multitude.

BEN JONSON (Discoveries) 1641.

The ignorant and rude multitude, the vulgar. BACON (Wisdom of the Ancients) 1609. The rude multitude... gaping for the spoil. HEYWOOD (English Traveller II. 1.) 1633. The base multitude.

BACON (Henry VII) 1622.

The giddy multitude.

SHAKESPEARE (2 Henry VI. 11. 4.) 1623.

BEAUMONT & FLETCHER (Little French Lawyer

The giddy multitude.

The staggering multitude.

II. I.) 1647.

MARSTON (Malcontent 11. 3.) 1604.

The unsteady multitude.

FORD (Lover's Melancholy 11. 1.) 1629.

The unsteady multitude.

BEAUMONT & FLETCHER (Laws of Candy) 1647. The giddy people.

CHAPMAN (Revenge for Honour 11. 1.) 1654. The giddy rout.

MASSINGER (Roman Actor 111. 2.) 1626-1629. The Chorus continues, mordant in its unanimity and contempt.

The abject people.

SHAKESPEARE (2 Henry VI) 1623.

The tag rag people.... the common herd. SHAKESPEARE (Julius Cæsar 1. 2.) 1623.

The rascal rabblement.

SPENSER (Fairy Queen III. 40.) 1590-1609.

The kennel rout of muddy brains.

MARSTON (Scourge) 1599.

Iron handed plebeians.... bawling hounds.

DAY (Humour out of Breath v. 2.) 1608. [Surely this roused dissentient murmurs from the pit ?]

More of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians.

SHAKESPEARE (Coriolanus II. 1.) 1623. Barber-surgeons, butchers, and such base mechanical persons.

BACON (Star Chamber Note on duelling) I hate them as I do the riots of your inconstant rabble.

MIDDLETON (Mayor of Quinborough 1. 1.) 1661. The huge mountebank, the vulgar rout.

FALKLAND (Marriage Night 1. 1.) 1664. The dung scum rabble of thin brained idiots, dull, incapable.

MARSTON (Scourge) 1599.

Rabble and scum of desperate people..... wild beasts as it were. 1

BACON (Henry VII.) 1622.

The dunghill millions.

ANON (Sir John Oldcastle) 1600.

1 This allusion is to Perkin Warbeck's rebel army.

The mutable, rank scented many.

SHAKESPEARE (Coriolanus III. 1). 1623.

That rascal many.

SPENSER (Fairy Queen v. 40) 1590-1609.

A rascal rout.

This rascal rout.

IBID (Ibid. v. 6.).

The common rabble.

ANON (Timon) 1600.

NASH (Summer's Last Will) 1600.

The common rout.

SHAKESPEARE (Comedy of Errors III. 1.) 1623.

The rout of the idolatrous vulgar.

MARSTON (What you will 111. 1.) 1607. In his royalty of intellect Shakespeare alludes even to the Honorable Members of the House of Commons as "rude, unpolised hinds, phrase which one can only marvel did not cost the writer his liberty, his ears, or his life.

" 1

In the Religio Medici Sir Thomas Browne gathers up nearly all the choleric epithets employed by the dramatist and presents them in one short paragraph. "If there be any among those common objets of hatred I do contemn and laugh at, it is that great enemy of reason, virtue, and religion-the multitude; that numerous piece of monstrosity which, taken asunder, seem men and the reasonable creatures of God, but confused together make but one great beast and a monstrosity more prodigious than Hydra. It is no breach of charity to call these fools.... Neither in the name of multitude do I only include the

1 Henry VI.