then, ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead". Then is there here one

months to six months: which when the poor gentleman came to sell again, he could not make three score and ten in the hundred besides the usury." Again, in Greene's Defence of Coneycatching, 1592: so that if he borrow an hundred pound, he shall have forty in silver, and threescore in wares; as lute-strings, hobby-horses, or brown paper, or cloath," &c.

Again, in The Spanish Curate of Beaumont and Fletcher : "Commodities of pins, brown papers, packthread."

Again, in Gascoigne's Steele Glasse:

"To teach young men the trade to sell browne paper.” Again, in Hall's Satires, lib. iv.:

"But Nummius eas'd the needy gallant's care,
"With a base bargaine of his blowen ware,

"Of fusted hoppes now lost for lacke of sayle,

"Or mol'd browne-paper that could nought auaile." Again, in Decker's Seven deadly Sinnes of London, 4to. bl. I. 1606: "and these are usurers, who, for a little money, and a great deale of trash, (as fire-shouels, browne paper, motley cloakebags, &c.) bring young nouices into a foole's paradice, till they have sealed the mortgage of their landes," &c. STEEVENS.

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"A commodity of brown paper-." Mr. Steevens supports this rightly. Fennor asks, in his Compter's Commonwealth, suppose the commodities are delivered after Signior Unthrift and Master Broaker have both sealed the bonds, how must those hobby-horses, reams of brown paper, Jewes trumpes and bables, babies and rattles, be solde?" FARMER.

The practices of the money-lenders of Shakspeare's time are thus minutely described by Nashe, in a pamphlet entitled Christ's Teares over Jerusalem, 1594: "He [a usurer] falls acquainted with gentlemen, frequents ordinaries and dicing-houses dayly, where when some of them at play have lost all their mony, he is very diligent at hand, on their chaines and bracelets, or jewels, to lend them half the value. Now this is the nature of young gentlemen, that where they have broke the ise, and borrowed once, they will come again the second time; and that these young foxes know as well as the beggar knows his dish. But at the second time of their coming, it is doubtful to say whether they shall have money or no. The world growes hard, and wee all are mortal; let him make him any assurance before a judge, and they shall have some hundred pounds per consequence, in silks and velvets. The third time if they come, they shall have baser commodities: the fourth time, lute-strings and grey paper." MALONE. In a MS. Letter from Sir John Hollis to Lord Burleigh, is the

master Caper, at the suit of master Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-colour'd satin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizy', and young master Deep-vow, and master Copper-spur, and master Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger-man, and young Drop-heir that kill'd lusty Pudding, and master Forthright the tilter, and brave master Shoe-tie the great traveller3, and wild Half-can that stabb'd Pots, and, I

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following passage: "Your Lordship digged into my auncestors graves, and pulling one up from his 70 yeares reste, pronounced him an abominable usurer and merchante of browne paper, so hatefull and contemptible that the players acted him before the kinge with great applause." And again: "Nevertheles I denye that any of them were merchantes of browne paper, neither doe I thinke any other but your Lordship's imagination ever sawe or hearde any of them playde upon a stage; and that they were such usurers I suppose your Lordship will want testimonye." DOUCE. 9 - GINGER was not much in request, for the OLD WOMEN were all dead.] So, in The Merchant of Venice : I would, she were as lying a gossip in that, as ever knapt ginger." STEEVENS. -young Dizy,] The old copy has-Dizey. This name, like the rest, must have been designed to convey some meaning. It might have been corrupted from Dicey, i. e. one addicted to dice; or from Dizzy, i. e. giddy, thoughtless. Thus, Milton styles the people the dizzy multitude." STEEVENS. -master FORTHRIGHT] The old copy reads-Forthlight. Dr. Johnson, however, proposes to read-Forthright, alluding to the line in which the thrust is made. REED. Shakspeare uses the word forthright in The Tempest: "Through forthrights and meanders."

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Again, in Troilus and Cressida, Act III. Sc. III. :

3

"Or hedge aside from the direct forthright." STEEVENS. and BRAVE master SHOE-TIE the great traveller,] The old copy reads-Shooty; but as most of these are compound names, I suspect that this was originally written as I have printed it. At this time shoe-strings were generally worn.

So, in Decker's Match me in London, 1631:

"I think your wedding shoes have not been oft untied." Again, in Randolph's Muses' Looking Glass, 1638 : "Bending his supple hams, kissing his hands, "Honouring shoe-strings."

Again, in Marston's 8th Satire :

think, forty more; all great doers in our trade, and are now for the Lord's sake.

"Sweet-faced Corinna, daine the riband tie

"Of thy corke-shooe, or els thy slave will die."

As the person described was a traveller, it is not unlikely that he might be solicitous about the minutiae of dress; and the epithet brave, i. e. showy, seems to countenance the supposition. STEEVENS.

Mr. Steevens's supposition is strengthened by Ben Jonson's Epigram upon English Monsieur. Whalley's edit. vol. vi. p. 253:

"That so much scarf of France, and hat and feather,
"And shoe, and tye, and garter, should come hither."

TOLLET.

The finery which induced our author to give his traveller the name of Shoe-tie was used on the stage in his time. "Would not this, sir, (says Hamlet,) and a forest of feathers, -with two provincial roses on my raz'd shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?" MALONE.

The roses mentioned in the foregoing instance were not the ligatures of the shoe, but the ornaments above them. STEEVENS. for the Lord's sake.] i, e. to beg for the rest of their WARBurton.

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lives.

I rather think this expression intended to ridicule the Puritans, whose turbulence and indecency often brought them to prison, and who considered themselves as suffering for religion.

It is not unlikely that men imprisoned for other crimes might represent themselves to casual enquirers as suffering for puritanism, and that this might be the common cant of the prisons. In Donne's time, every prisoner was brought to jail by suretiship.

JOHNSON.

Thus, in Christ's Tears over Jerusalem, 1594: "Baudes, if they be imprisoned or carried to bridewell for their baudrie, they give out they suffer for the Church.”

The word in (now expunged in consequence of a following and apposite quotation of Mr. Malone's) had been supplied by some of the modern editors. The phrase which Dr. Johnson has justly explained is used in A new Trick to cheat the Devil, 1636: “I held it, wife, a deed of charity, and did it for the Lord's sake." STEEVENS.

I believe Dr. Warburton's explanation is right. It appears from a poem entitled Paper's Complaint, printed among Davies's Epigrams, [about the year 1611,] that this was the language in which prisoners who were confined for debt addressed passengers: "Good gentle writers, for the Lord's sake, for the Lord's sake, "Like Ludgate prisoner, lo, I, begging, make

"My mone.'

Enter ABHORSON.

ABHOR. Sirrah, bring Barnardine hither. CLO. Master Barnardine! you must rise and be hang'd, master Barnardine!

ABHOR. What, ho, Barnardine!

BARNAR. [Within.] A pox o' your throats! Who makes that noise there? What are you?

CLO. Your friends, sir; the hangman: You must be so good, sir, to rise and be put to death.

BARNAR. [Within.] Away, you rogue, away; I am sleepy.

ABHOR. Tell him, he must awake, and that quickly too.

CLO. Pray, master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep afterwards.

ABHOR. Go in to him, and fetch him out.

CLO. He is coming, sir, he is coming; I hear his straw rustle.

Enter BARNardine.

ABHOR. Is the axe upon the block, sirrah?
CLO. Very ready, sir.

BARNAR. How now, Abhorson? what's the news with you?

ABHOR. Truly, sir, I would desire you to clap into your prayers; for, look you, the warrant's come.

Again, in Nashe's Apologie for Pierce Pennilesse, 1593: "At that time that thy joys were in the fleeting, and thus crying for the Lord's sake out at an iron window."

The meaning, however, may be, to beg or borrow for the rest of their lives. A passage in Much Ado About Nothing, may countenance this interpretation: "he wears a key in his ear, and a lock hanging to it, and borrows money in God's name, the which he hath used so long, and never paid, that men grow hardhearted, and will lend nothing for God's sake."

Mr. Pope reads-and are now in for the Lord's sake. Perhaps unnecessarily. In King Henry IV. Part I. Falstaff says-" there's not three of my hundred and fifty left alive; and they are for the town's end, -to beg during life." MALONE.

BARNAR. You rogue, I have been drinking all night, I am not fitted for't.

CLO. O, the better, sir; for he that drinks all night, and is hang'd betimes in the morning, may sleep the sounder all the next day.

Enter Duke.

ABHOR. LOOK you, sir, here comes your ghostly father; Do we jest now, think you?

DUKE. Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with you.

BARNAR. Friar, not I; I have been drinking hard all night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets I will not consent to die this day, that's certain.

DUKE. O, sir, you must: and therefore, I beseech you,

Look forward on the journey you shall go.

BARNAR. I swear, I will not die to-day for any man's persuasion.

DUKE. But hear you,

BARNAR. Not a word; if you have any thing to say to me, come to my ward; for thence will not I to-day. [Exit.

Enter Provost.

DUKE. Unfit to live, or die: O, gravel heart!After him, fellows': bring him to the block.

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[Exeunt ABHORSON and Clown.

to CLAP INTO your prayers;] This cant phrase occurs also in As You Like It: Shall we clap into't roundly, without hawking or spitting?"

STEEVENS.

7 After him, fellows;] Here is a line given to the Duke, which belongs to the Provost. The Provost, while the Duke is lamenting the obduracy of the prisoner, cries out:

"After him, fellows," &c.

and when they are gone out, turns again to the Duke. JOHNSON.