letter I snatched from thee? [_To +Ancient+.

+Anc.+ Not, and thou lovest me.

+Moll.+ Good brother, let me see it; sweet brother, dainty brother, honey brother.

+Alex.+ No indeed, you shall not see it, sweet sister, dainty sister, honey sister.

+Moll.+ O good sir, since so long time I have loved you, let me not die for your sake.

+Alex.+ The tide turns. [_Aside._

+Anc.+ Long time loved me!

+Moll.+ Long ere you went to sea, I did. I have lov'd you very long with all my heart.

+Alex.+ Think of Bess, think of Bess; 'tis the better match.

+Moll.+ You wicked brother! Indeed I love you better than all the Besses in the world; and if to-night I shift not into better fortunes, to-morrow I am made the miserablest wife marriage and misery can produce.

+Alex.+ Is't possible?

+Moll.+ Alas, sir! I am to marry an old man--a very old man, trust me. I was strange[83] in the nice timorous temper of a maid: I know 'tis against our sex to say we love; but rather than match with sixty and ten, threescore and ten times I would tell you so, and tell them ten times over, too. Truth loves not virtue with more of virtuous truth than I do you; and wonnot you love me then? [_Weeps._

+Anc.+ And lie with thee too, by this hand, wench. Come, let us have fair weather; thou art mine, and I am thine; there's an end o' th' business. This was but a trick, there's the projector.

+Moll.+ O, you're a sweet brother!

+Alex.+ And now thou'rt my sweet sister. I know the old man's gone to meet with an old wench that will meet with him,[84] or Jarvis has no juice in his brains; and while I, i' th' meantime, set another wheel agoing at the widow's, do thou soon--about ten, for 'tis to be very conveniently dark--meet this gentleman at the Nag's Head corner, just against Leadenhall. We lie in Lime Street; thither he shall carry thee, accommodate thee daintily all night with Mistress Dorothy, and marry i' th' morning very methodically.

+Moll.+ But I have the charge of my father's keys, where all his writings lie.

+Anc.+ How all things jump in a just equivalency, To keep thee from the thing of threescore and ten! Didst thou not see my mortgage lately there?

+Moll.+ Stay, stay.

+Alex.+ A white devil with a red fox-tail in a black box. [_Aside._

+Moll.+ But yesterday my father showed it me, and swears, if I pleased him well, it should serve to jump[85] out my portion.

+Anc.+ Prove thine old dad a prophet; bring it with thee, wench.

+Moll.+ But now, at's parting, he charged me to have a care to that as to my maidenhead.

+Alex.+ Why, if he have thy maidenhead and that into the bargain, thy charge is performed. Away, get thee in, forget not the hour; and you had better fight under Ancient Young's colours than the old man's standard of sixty and ten.

+Anc.+[86] Remember this, mad-brain! [_Exeunt._

FOOTNOTES:

[65] [Old copy, _ends of old ballets_.]

[66] A stanza, with some alterations, of the old ballad of "Fair Rosamond," [printed in Deloney's "Garland of Good-Will."] See Percy's "Reliques," vol. ii.

[67] See note on p. 47.

[68] The 4º reads _in one shirt_.--_Collier._

[69] A pun on the Latin word _anser_, which signifies a _goose_.

[70] To _cool his heels_ is a very common expression, which for some reason, or perhaps no reason, was altered in the edition of 1780, to _cool himself_.--_Collier._

[71] _Ingenious_ and _ingenuous_ were formerly used indiscriminately for each other. [The truth seems to be that ingenuous was merely understood formerly in the sense in which we use it now, and that _ingenious_, on the contrary, had a larger meaning, standing generally for the gifts of the mind or intellect. Old-fashioned people only would say of such an one, "He's an ingenious man," meaning a person of intellectual culture.]

[72] The stage direction in the old copy is not very intelligible: _Enter like a gentleman very brave, with Jarvis cloaths in's hand._--_Collier._

[73] The 4º reads _sweet discovered twins_.--_Collier._

[74] A common expression to signify the eyes. See several instances in Mr Steevens's note on "King Henry V.," act ii. sc. 3.

[75] [The text has been changed here, with what degree of success the reader has to determine. In the former editions it stood thus--

"Through my face Apparelled with this field of gravity, The neglected roughness of a soldier's dart."

Perhaps this passage was intended as an _aside_.]

[76] The 4º has _Enter Bloodhound, Ear-lack with letters, Sim, and Moll._ But as there is no business nor speech for Ear-lack during the whole scene, I have expunged his name.

[77] [An allusion to the proverb, "He has a cloak for every rain"--_i.e._, an expedient for every turn of fortune.]

[78] Mr Reed altered _hose_ to _coat_ without any warrant whatever.--_Collier._

[79] A parody of that Latin saying, _Periissem nisi periissem_.--_Pegge._

[80] _i.e._, The story-book with that name, [first printed in 1481. The abridged and modernised version was probably the one with which Moll was familiar. The earliest edition of this yet discovered is dated 1620.]--_Steevens._

[81] [A play on the name of] a dance, [which is constantly mentioned in old plays.]

[82] [Old copy, _legg'd_.]

[83] _i.e._, Shy, coy. See note to "Cymbeline," act i. sc. 7, edit. 1778.--_Steevens._

[84] _i.e._, Be even with him. The phrase occurs in Shakespeare's "Much Ado about Nothing," act i. sc. 1. See note thereon.--_Stevens._

[85] _Jump_ is the word in the 4º, though altered in the edit. of 1780 without notice to _eke_. Moll only repeats the term used by the Ancient just before--

"How all things jump in a just equivalency."

--_Collier._

[86] [Old copy gives this speech to Moll.]