We give this incident on the testimony of a gallant naval officer; an unquestionable authority, though we are fully aware that some of our readers may be ungenerously sceptical, and perhaps even rude enough to attempt some vile pun about the brave sailor's "drawing a long yarn."

If, however, Gammer Gurton's needle resembled the one we have just referred to, and that, too, at a time when a needle, even not supernaturally endowed, was not to be had of English manufacture, and therefore could only be purchased probably at a high price, we cannot wonder at the aggrieved feelings of her domestic circle when the catastrophe occurred which is depicted as follows:-The parties interested were the Dame Gammer Gurton herself; Hodge, her farming man; Tib, her maid; Cocke, her boy; and Gib, her cat. our quotation is taken is not without some pretensions to wit, though of the coarsest kind: it is supposed to have been first performed at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1566; and Warton observes on it, that while Latimer's sermons were in vogue at court, Gammer Gurton's needle might well be tolerated at the university.

The play from which

ACT I. SCENE 3. HODGE AND TIB.

Hodge. "I am agast, by the masse, I wot not what to do;
I had need blesse me well before I go them to:
Perchance, some felon spirit may haunt our house indeed,
And then I were but a noddy to venter where's no need."
Tib. "I'm worse than mad, by the masse, to be at this stay.

I'm chid, I'm blam'd, and beaten all th' hours on the
day.

Lamed and hunger starved, pricked up all in jagges, Having no patch to hide my backe, save a few rotten ragges."

Hodge. "I say, Tib, if thou be Tib, as I trow sure thou be,

What devil make ado is this between our dame and thee ?" Tib. "Truly, Hodge, thou had a good turn thou wart not here this

while;

It had been better for some of us to have been hence a

mile:

My Gammer is so out of course, and frantike all at once,

That Cocke, our boy, and I poor wench, have felt it on

our bones."

Hodge. "What is the matter, say on, Tib, whereat she taketh

so on ?"

Tib. "She is undone, she saith (alas) her life and joy is gone:
If she hear not of some comfort, she is she saith but dead,
Shall never come within her lips, on inch of meat ne
bread.

And heavy, heavy is her grief, as, Hodge, we all shall
feel."-

Hodge. "My conscience, Tib, my Gammer has never lost her neele ?"

"Her neele."

Hodge. "Her neele ?"

Tib. "Her neele, by him that made me !"

Hodge. "How a murrain came this chaunce (say Tib) unto her

dame ?

Tib. "My Gammer sat her down on the pes, and bade me reach thy breches,

And by and by, a vengeance on it, or she had take two
stitches

To clout upon the knee, by chaunce aside she lears,
And Gib our cat, in the milk pan, she spied over head and

ears.

Ah! out, out, theefe, she cried aloud, and swapt the breeches down,

Up went her staffe, and out leapt Gib at doors into the

town:

And since that time was never wight cold set their eyes upon it.

God's malison she have Cocke and I bid twentie times light on it."

Hodge. "And is not then my breches sewed up, to-morrow that I

shuld wear?"

Tib. "No, in faith, Hodge, thy breches lie, for all this never the

near."

Hodge. "Now a vengeance light on al the sort, that better shold have kept it;

The cat, the house, and Tib our maid, that better should have swept it.

Se, where she cometh crawling! Come on, come on thy lagging way;

Ye have made a fair daies worke, have you not? pray you, say."

ACT I. SCENE 4. GAMMER, HODGE, TIB, COCKE.

Gammer. "Alas, alas, I may well curse and ban

This day, that ever I saw it, with Gib and the milke pan.

For these, and ill lucke together, as knoweth Cocke my boy,

Have stacke away my dear neele, and rob'd me of my joy,

My fair long straight neele, that was mine only trea

sure,

The first day of my sorrow is, and last of my pleasure." Hodge. "Might ha kept it when ye had it; but fools will be fools

still:

Lose that is fast in your hands? ye need not, but ye will."

Gommer. "Go hie the, Tib, and run along, to th' end here of the

town.

Didst carry out dust in thy lap? seek where thou porest

it down;

And as thou sawest me roking in the ashes where I

morned,

So see in all the heap of dust thou leave no straw unturned."

Hodge. "Your neele lost? it is pitie you shold lacke care and endles

sorrow.

Tell me, how shall my breches be sewid? shall I go thus to-morrow ?"

Gammer. "Ah, Hodge, Hodge, if that I could find my neele, by

the reed,

I'd sew thy breches, I promise the, with full good

double threed,

And set a patch on either knee, shall last this months twain,

Now God, and Saint Sithe, I pray, to send it back again."

Hodge. "Whereto served your hands and eyes, but your neele

keep?

What devil had you els to do? ye keep, I wot, no sheep.

I'm fain abrode to dig and delve, in water, mire and clay,

Sossing and possing in the dirt, still from day to day

A hundred things that be abroad, I'm set to see them weel;

And four of you sit idle at home, and cannot keep a neele."

Gammer. "My neele, alas, I lost, Hodge, what time I me up

hasted,

To save milk set up for thee, which Gib our cat hath wasted."

Hodge. "The devil he take both Gib and Tib, with all the rest; I'm always sure of the worst end, whoever have the

best.

Where ha you ben fidging abroad, since you your neele lost ?"

Gammer. "Within the house, and at the door, sitting by this same post;

Where I was looking a long hour, before these folke came here;

But, wel away! all was in vain, my neele is never the

near !"

"Gammer Gurton's Needle," says Hazlitt, "is a regular comedy, in five acts, built on the circumstance of an old woman having lost her needle which throws the whole village into confusion, till it is at last providentially found sticking in an unlucky part of Hodge's dress. This must evidently have happened at a time when the manufactures of

Sheffield and Birmingham had not reached the height of perfection which they have at present done. Suppose that there is only one sewing needle in a village, that the owner, a diligent notable old dame, loses it, that a mischief-making wag sets it about that another old woman has stolen this valuable instrument of household industry, that strict search is made every where in-doors for it in vain, and that then the incensed parties sally forth to scold it out in the open air, till words end in blows, and the affair is referred over to the higher authorities, and we shall have an exact idea (though, perhaps, not so lively a one) of what passes in this authentic document between Gammer Gurton and her gossip Dame Chat; Dickon the Bedlam (the causer of these harms); Hodge, Gammer Gurton's servant; Tyb, her maid; Cocke, her 'prentice boy; Doll Scapethrift; Master Baillie, his master; Dr. Rat, the curate; and Gib, the cat, who may fairly be reckoned one of the dramatis and performs no mean part."

personæ, and

From the needle itself the transition is easy to the needlework which was in vogue at the time when this little implement was so valuable and rare a commodity. We are told that the various kinds of needlework practised at this time would, if enumerated, astonish even the most industrious of our modern ladies. The lover of Shakspeare will remember that the term point device is often used by him, and that, indeed, it is a term frequently met with in the writers of that age with various applications; and it is originally derived, according to Mr. Douce, from the fine stitchery of the ladies.