“Weele have a Wench shall be our Poet”: Samuel Rowlands’ Gossip Pamphlets

Abstract

In a preface to Samuel Rowlands’ pamphlet Tis Merry when Gossips meete, printed in 1602, a gentleman discusses with a bookseller’s apprentice what book he should buy. The gentleman says he knows of no new book that interests him. Perhaps the apprentice could sell him all of Robert Greene’s works in one volume, or has he something by Thomas Nashe? The apprentice urges upon him a new book about “a Merrie meeting heere in London, betweene a Wife, a Widdow, and a Mayde.” At first the gentleman demurs: he says that the title “Merrie meeting” is “stale.” He knows other ballads and books with “merrie meeting” in the title. The apprentice assures him that this is a new work and that it has special properties. If the gentleman purchases the book, he will be able to carry the wife, maid, and widow in his pocket and let them out when he wants to listen to them talk. When he has heard enough of their gossip, he can repocket them. The apprentice further argues that the gentleman “may make vertious use of this Booke divers wayes.” Because he may summon at will the bodies and voices of the three women in his room alone, the book may keep him “from Dice, Taverne, Bawdy-house, and so forth.” One wonders what else the gentleman might do with the book in his pocket or what the apprentice meant by “and so forth.”