SCENE VI.

MEANWELL _with a letter in his hand_, HEARSAY, SLICER. MEANWELL _reads_.

_Sweet sir, I am most passionately yours,_ _To serve you all the ways I can: Priscilla._ Very well penn'd of a young chambermaid. I do conceive your meaning, sweet Priscilla. You see I have the happy fortune on't; A night for nothing, and entreated, too.

SLICER. Thou dost not know how I do love thee. Let me Make use of this; thou'lt have the like occasion.

HEAR. Thou art the fawning'st fellow, Slicer! Meanwell, Hark here.

MEAN. For God's sake, be contented, sirs; I'm flesh and blood as well as you. Lieutenant, Think on your suburb beauties. Sweet intelligencer, I will by no means bar you of your lady: Your sin, I assure you, will be honourable. [_Exit_ MEANWELL.

SLICER. Pox o' your liquorish lips! If that she don't After this sealing forty weeks, deliver Something unto thee as thy act and deed, Say I can't prophesy.

HEAR. If I don't serve him A trick he thinks not of----

SLICER. Didst mark how he Did apply himself to the knight all dinner! I am afraid he plays the cunning factor, And in another's name wooes for himself.

HEAR. Let it go on; let it work something farther: 'Tis almost ripe enough to crush. He hath not Crept high enough as yet to be sensible Of any fall.

SLICER. Now is the time, or never. This night, you know, he and his doxy meet; Let me alone to give them their good-morrow. If that we carry things but one week longer Without discovery, farewell London then: The world's our own. He ne'er deserves to thrive That doth not venture for it: wealth's then sweet, When bought with hazard. Fate this law hath set; The fool inherits, but the wise must get.

FOOTNOTES:

[176] [See Halliwell's Dictionary, _v._ Haro--the same word, and Littrè's French Dictionary. A case occurred a few years ago, in which the ancient _Clameur de Haro_ was raised at Jersey, in the Presbyterian Church there. But the word is here employed as a mere ejaculation or exclamation, and, it must be added, without much propriety.]

[177] Faint.--_T._

[178] Burning.--_T._

[179] See notes to "Midsummer Night's Dream," act ii. sc. 1, [and "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," 1870, iii. 39 _et seq._]

[180] Agreeable, pleasing.

[181] Disdainful.--_T._

[182] [Tear.]

[183] See Stowe's "Survey of London," Strype's edition, 1720, vol. I. bk. ii. p. 18.

[184] Gate.

[185] The name of Chaucer's cock and hen.--_Steevens._

[186] So that this play was written in 1634.--_Pegge._

[187] These rings were sometimes made out of the handles of decayed coffins, and in more ancient times were consecrated at the ceremony of _creeping [to] the cross_, of which an account is given in a note on the "Merry Devil of Edmonton," with reference to the observations of Dr Percy on the "Northumberland Household Book," 1512.--_Steevens._

Cramp-rings were formerly worn as charms for curing of the cramp. See Brookes's "Natural History," vol. i. p. 206.--_Pegge._

Andrew Borde, in his "Book of the Introduction of Knowledge," 1542, says: "The kynges of Englande ... doth halowe every yere _crampe rynges_, the which rynges worne on ones fynger doth helpe them the whyche hath the crampe." Dr Percy, in his notes on the "Northumberland Household Book," speaking of these rings observes "that our ancient kings even in those dark times of superstition, do not seem to have affected to cure the king's evil; at least in the MSS. above quoted there is no mention or hint of any power of that sort. This miraculous gift was left to be claimed by the Stuarts: our ancient Plantagenets were humbly content to cure the _cramp_." I cite this passage merely to remark that the learned editor of the above curious volume has been betrayed into a mistake by the manner in which the _cramp rings_ are mentioned in Mr Anstis's MSS. The power of curing the king's evil was certainly claimed by many of the Plantagenets. The above Dr Borde, who wrote in the time of Henry VIII., says, "The kynges of England, by the power that God hath given to them, doth make sicke men whole of a sickness called the _Kynges Evyll_." In Laneham's "Account of the Entertainment of Kennilworth Castle," it is said, "And also by her highness accustomed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the paynful and dangerous diseaz called the _King's Evil_, for that kings and queens of this realm withoout oother medsin (save only by handling and prayer) only doo cure it." Polydore Virgil asserts the same, and William Tooker, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, [1597,] published a book on this subject. For the knowledge of this last book I am obliged to Dr Douglas's excellent treatise, called "The Criterion," p. 191, &c.

[188] Alluding to the old way of biting the wax, usually red, in sealing deeds.--_Pegge._

The form usually was this--

"And to witness this is sooth, I bite the wax with my wang tooth."

See Cowell's "Interpreter," 1607.

[189] Better.--_T._

[190] Do.--_T._

[191] An allusion to the effects of water on cloth ill-woven.

[192] [A proverb, or bye-word.]

[193] _i.e._, Those who write the customary verses during the Lent season at Oxford.--_Steevens._

[194] _i.e._, Scraps of anything; ~analegô~, colligo. Every one has heard of the _collectanea_ and _analecta poetarum_.--_Steevens._

[195] [The reading of the old copy is _humble_, which does not appear to agree at all with the context, since the parson addresses Andrew in a half-satirical strain of respect.]

[196] Robert Wisdom, a translator of the Psalms. Wood ("Athenæ Oxonienses," vol. i., "Fasti," p. 57) says he was "a good Latin and English poet of his time, and one that had been in exile in Queen Mary's reign. He was also rector of Settrington in Yorkshire, and died in 1568, having been nominated to a bishopric in Ireland in the time of Edward the 6th." His version of the Psalms is ridiculed in the "Remains of Samuel Butler," 1759, p. 41--

"Thence, with short meal and tedious grace, In a loud tone and public place, Sings _Wisdom's_ Hymns, that trot and pace As if Goliah scann'd 'em."

Again, p. 230: "Besides, when Rouse stood forth for his trial, _Robin Wisdom_ was found the better poet." [Further particulars of Wisdom are to be found in Warton's Poetry, by Hazlitt, iv. 131.]

[197] [Old copy, _my_.]

[198] [Of these books the two former are not at present known by such titles. The third, the "Life of Mistress Katherine Stubs," by her husband, the celebrated Philip Stubs, was originally published in 1591, and went through many editions.] The Author observes, in the opening of the tract: "At fifteen years of age, her father being dead, her mother bestowed her in marriage upon one Master Philip Stubbes, with whom she lived four years and almost a half, very honestly and godly."

Richard Brome, in his play of "The Antipodes," act iii. sc. 2, mentions one of them in the following manner--

"A booke of the godly _life and death_ _Of Mistress Katherine Stubs_, which I have turn'd Into sweet meetre, for the vertuous youth, To woe an ancient lady widow with."

Again, Bishop Corbet in his "Iter Boreale," says--

"And in some barn hear cited many an author, _Kate Stubbs_, Anne Ascue, or the Ladies Daughter."

[199] _i.e._, Been the mediator. The stickler now is called the _sidesman_. So in "Troilus and Cressida," act v. sc. 8--

"And, _stickler_-like, our armies separates."

--_Steevens._

[200] "_Moot_ is a term used in the Inns-of-Court, and signifies the handling or arguing a case for exercise."--_Blount._

For the regulations of _Mooting_ and _Reading-Days_, see Dugdale's "Origines Juridiciales."

[201] This was Dr _Matthew Sutcliff_, Dean of Exeter, in the reign of King James I.; a person who had been one of the opponents of Parsons the Jesuit, in defence of the Reformed Religion. In the year 1616 he procured an Act of Parliament for incorporating himself and other divines to be provost and fellows of a college then founded at Chelsea, for promoting the study of polemic divinity, and vindicating the doctrines of the Reformation against all Popish writers. To carry this design into execution, he settled on the college four farms in Devonshire, of the value of £300 per annum, and the benefit of an extent on a statute, acknowledged by Sir Lewis Stukely, for £4000. By the Act of Parliament, the college was empowered to bring a stream of water from the river Lee for the use of the city of London a scheme similar to that then lately executed by Sir Hugh Middleton. This foundation, although patronised both by King James and his sons, Prince Henry and Charles I., yet fell to decay. One range of building only, scarce an eighth of the intended edifice, was erected by Dr Sutcliff, at the expense of £3000. After lingering some time, suits were commenced about the title to the very ground on which the college stood, and by a decree of the Court of Chancery, in the time of Lord Coventry, three of the four farms were returned to Dr Sutcliff's heir. See "The Glory of Chelsey Colledge Revived," by John Darly, 4o, 1662. _Sutcliff's wit_ seems almost to have been proverbial. Beaumont, in his letter to Ben Jonson, says--

"'Tis liquor that will find out _Sutcliff's wit_, Lie where he will, and make him write worse yet."