hath wrought.
But thou, Lord, knowest all folks' thoughts and eke intents;
And thou art the deliverer of all innocents.
Thou didst keep the advoutress,[19] that she might be amended;
Much more then keep, Lord,[20] that never sin intended.
Thou didst keep Susanna, wrongfully accused,
And no less dost thou see, Lord, how I am now abused.
Thou didst keep Hester, when she should have died,
Keep also, good Lord, that my truth may be tried.
Yet, if Gawin Goodluck with Tristram Trusty speak,
I trust of ill-report the force shall be but weak;
And lo! yond they come talking sadly together:
I will abide, and not shrink for their coming hither."

[19] Adulteress.

[20] Understand "me."

Freedom from coarseness is more than can be predicated of the still more
famous _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, attributed to, and all but certainly known
to be, by John Still, afterwards bishop. The authorship, indeed, is not
quite certain; and the curious reference in Martin Marprelate's _Epistle_
(ed. Arber, p. 11) to "this trifle" as "shewing the author to have had some
wit and invention in him" only disputes the claim of Dr. Bridges to those
qualities, and does not make any suggestion as to the identity of the more
favoured author. Still was the son of a Lincolnshire gentleman, is supposed
to have been born about 1543, was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge,
and after a course of preferment through the positions of parish priest in
London and at Hadleigh, Dean of Bocking, Canon of Westminster, Master
successively of St. John's and Trinity, and Vice-Chancellor of his own
University, was at the beginning of 1593 made Bishop of Bath and Wells, an
office which he held for fifteen years. His play (taking it as his) was his
only work of the kind, and was the first English play acted at either
university, though later he himself had to protest officially against the
use of the vernacular in a piece performed before the Queen. _Gammer
Gurton's Needle_, as has been said, is, despite the subsequent history of
its author and the academic character of its appearance, of a much lower
order of comedy than _Ralph Roister Doister_, though it is also more
spontaneous, less imitative, and, in short, more original. The best thing
about it is the magnificent drinking song, "Back and Side go Bare, go
Bare," one of the most spirited and genuine of all bacchanalian lyrics; but
the credit of this has sometimes been