sion of James, the Scotch penny was worth not more than one twelfth of the English. At the time of our play, a decade later, its comparative value seems to have risen to one tenth. James, being the monarch of two kingdoms, had to maintain a double currency (cf. Poole, 131-132).

64. 13 All my wedding gloues, Ginger-bread. Trash's 'Gingerbread progeny' were baked, some in the mold of a hand, and some in that of a brooch. Brand says: "The giving of gloves at marriages is a custom of remote antiquity. The following is an extract from a letter to Mr. Winwood from Sir Dudley Carleton, dated London, January, 1604, concerning the manner of celebrating the marriage between Sir Philip Herbert and the Lady Susan: "No ceremony was omitted of bridecakes, points, garters and gloves." In Epicoene, 3. 2, Lady Haughty remarks: 'We see no ensigns of a wedding here; no character of a bride-ale: where be our scarves and our gloves? Cf. Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, Feb. 10, 1614: 'Mrs. Drummond's marriage cost the Queen 3,000 1. Sam. Danyell wrote a pastoral, solemn and dull. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen were invited the day after, had rich gloves, and gave the bride a cup with 200 Jacobuses.' Beck in his Gloves, their Annals and Associations (London, 1883), 235-238, speaking of the great importance attached to gloves at weddings and legal betrothals, says that they were given not only to all present, but also were sent to those who had any reason to be considered friends or acquaint

ances.

64. 16 I'le ha' this poesie put to 'hem. 'It was formerly the custom to engrave mottoes or posies upon wedding, betrothal and other rings, and books of these mottoes were published. One of these, Love's Garland, appeared in 1624, and again in 1674. In the latter year was also published Cupid's Posies for Bracelets, Handkerchers, and Rings, with Scarfes, Gloves, and other things:—

Written by Cupid on a day

When Venus gave me leave to play.

The lover sheweth his intent

By gifts that are with posies sent.'

Wheatley, Every Man In, 159.

65. 12 There is a sketch by Inigo Jones, entitled the 'BalletSinger,' reproduced in Cunningham's Inigo Jones.

65. 18 lime bush. A bush smeared with bird-lime, 'a viscous substance prepared from the inner bark of the holly, Ilex Aquifolium, used for entangling small birds in order to capture them.'-C.D.

65. 27 the Messe. 'A set of four; any group of four persons or things: originally as a convenient subdivision of a numerous company at dinner, a practice still maintained in the London inns

of Court.'-C.D. Cf. L. L. Lost, 4. 3. 207: 'That you three fools lack'd me fool to make up the mess.'

66. 19 'In Jonson's time scarcely any ballad was printed without a wooden cut, illustrative of its subject. If it was a ballad of "pure love", or of "good life", which afforded no scope for the graphic talents of the Grub-street Apelles, the portrait of "good queen Elizabeth", magnificently adorned with the globe and sceptre, formed no unwelcome substitute for her loving subjects. The houses of the common people, especially those of the distant counties, seem to have had little other ornamental tapestry than was supplied by these fugitive pieces, which came out every term in incredible numbers, and were rapidly dispersed over the kingdom, by shoals of itinerant sirens.'-G.

66. 31 Paggintons Pound. This tune more often called Packington's Pound, is to be found in Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book; also in A New Book of Tablature, 1596; in the Collection of English Songs printed at Amsterdam in 1634; etc. It was a country dance probably composed by Thomas Pagington, one of the musicians retained in the service of the Protector Somerset on the death of Henry VIII, 1547. See Chappell's Collection of National English Airs (London, 1838), 1. 71 (for the music), 2. 113 (for the history). 67. This ballad with a few slight variations is included in D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy (1719), 4. 20, 'The Cut-Purse. By B. Johnson'; the music is also given. In the Roxburghe Ballads, edited by J. P. Collier (1847), 271, there is 'A Caveat for Cut-Purses. To the Tune of "Packingtons Pound." Collier in his prefatory note makes no mention of Jonson's being the author, although from an allusion he conjectures it must have 'preceded the Restoration, and indeed the Civil Wars.' The noteworthy feature of Collier's 'Caveat' is that following the first five stanzas, the same as found in our play, there are five additional stanzas, quite new; the first of which is:

The Players do tell you, in Bartholmew Faire,

What secret consumptions and rascals you are;
For one of their Actors, it seems, had the fate
By some of your trade to be fleeced of late:
Then, fall to your prayers,

You that are way-layers,

They're fit to chouse all the world,

That can cheat Players;

For he hath the art, and no man the worse,

Whose cunning can pilfer the pilferer's purse.

Youth, youth, etc.

(The allusion in the first line is probably not to the play, but to the Smithfield Fair). Is the ballad Jonson's, with supplemental verses,

or did Jonson take part of a popular street ballad and incorporate it into his play? The former is much more likely; evidence amounting almost to proof, lies in the mention of the hangman Dun in stanza 9. According to Collier (cf. his prefatory note), Derrick occupied that office from the last years of Elizabeth's reign until 1616, and was then succeeded by Dun, who was the hangman for the next thirty or forty years. Hence, the later verses must have been composed some time after the original production of Bartholomew Fair, 1614. 67. II for and. See Glossary.

The warning is no more severe than the punishment that was actually meted out to cutpurses. A hangman by the name of Grotwell, was himself hanged with two others, for robbing a booth in Bartholomew Fair during Henry VIII's time.

67. 18, 19 Greene in The Thirde Part of Cony-Catching (1592), Works, 10. 161-164, gives a very close parallel to the game played by Edgworth and Nightingale. Two rogues took their stand in a crowded place and began singing ballads, which they offered for sale. Their confederates were among the crowd, noting 'where euerie man that bought, put vp his purse againe, and to such as would not buy, counterfeit warning was sundrie times giuen by the rogue and his associate, to beware of the cut-pursse, and looke to their pursses, which made them often feel where their pursses were.' By 'shouldring, thrusting, feigning to let fall something, and other wilie tricks', they secured ten purses. The ballad-singers, however, were suspected; the angry losers turning upon them, beat them well, and had them brought before the justice, before whom they were convicted as accomplices. Cf. also The Winter's Tale, 4. 4 605-630, where the rogue Autolycus takes advantage of the close attention given to the shepherdesses' songs to relieve the company of their 'festival purses.'

68. 25 handy-dandy. 'An old guessing game for children in which one player is required to guess in which hand another player has hidden some object.'-S.D. Cf. Lear, 4. 6. 157: 'Change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?'

68. 28 Cutpurses in the London theatres not infrequently found opportunity for plying their trade when spectators were absorbed in the play. William Kemp in his Kemp's nine days' wonder narrates that at Burnt Wood while performing his famous morris-dance from London to Norwich (1600), two cutpurses were taken into custody, 'that with other two of their companions followed me from London; as many better disposed people did. But these two dy-doppers gave out, when they were apprehended, that "they had laid wagers, and betted about my journey." Whereupon the Officers, bringing them to my inn, I justly denied their acquaintance; saving that "I remem

bered one of them to be a noted cut-purse:" such a one as we tie to a post on our Stage, for all people to wonder at; when at a Play, they are taken pilfering.'—Arber's English Garner, 7. 22.

69. 8 The Rat-catchers charme. Alluded to by many contemporary writers. It is described by Nares under 'Rats Rhymed to Death': 'The fanciful idea that rats were commonly rimed to death, in Ireland, arose probably from some metrical charm or incantation used for that purpose. Sir W. Temple seems to derive it from the Runic incantations.' Nares refers to many passages where the myth is alluded to, among which are the following: Poetaster, Epilogue to Reader:

Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats
In drumming tunes.

Staple of News, Interim after Act 4: 'Or the fine Madrigal-man in rhyme, to have run him out of the country, like an Irish rat.' Very similar is the myth on which Browning based The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

69. 23 In consideration of the immense number of rogues in London at this time, the term nation is rather appropriately applied to them.

69. 31 he has lighted on the wrong pocket. Quarlous' attention is so concentrated on the purse that he either does not see, or fails to appreciate, that Edgworth in his thoroughness is also relieving Cokes of his handkerchief (cf. 70. 30). For an old woodcut, the subject of which is this particular scene, see Jonson's Works (1716), vol. 4, frontispiece.

70. 5 And kisse not the Gallowes. Cf. 'Kiss the dust'.

70. 22 afore your time. As though of necessity, like a thing appointed by fate, Cokes must sometime show that he is an Asse. Waspe's injunction is that he should not needlessly show himself one.

71. 4 Away Asse, away. This is an ingenious device of Edgworth's by which Nightingale can withdraw, and by taking the plunder to Ursula, avoid all dangerous consequences, in case that later he should be suspected and searched.

71. II be benefic'd at the Gallowes. i. e. If he should receive as his church-living, the hangman's noose. Cokes (1. 13) carries the figure still further in promising him no satisfaction in his preferment (superior office).

72. 4 An' there were no wiser then I, etc. i. e. If I had my way, the opportunity for losing all your money would be given you; Waspe utters this in a spirit of momentary impatience and disgust. He resumes his plain speech and serious tone again in the next line: I would teach your wit, etc. Cf. Staple of News, 2. 1: 'Cen. Well,

an there were no wiser than I, I would sew him in a sack and send him by sea to his princess.' Also 3. 2, where the same character says: 'An there were no wiser than I, I would have ne'er a cunning schoolmaster in England.'

72. 11 call me Coriat. The point of this allusion rests on Coryate's having started out on a second journey (1612), going to Egypt, the Holy Land, Persia, etc. This tour he announced would be of ten years duration; he died in 1617, before its conclusion. 72. 19 the danger of concealing. Quarlous' legal studies would acquaint him with this.

72. 24 Catchpoles. Petty officers of justice under the sheriff; they could make arrests. The name had become an expression of contempt. For an interesting account of the origin of the term see Fairholt, Costume in Eng. 288; Fairholt's statement, however, is not supported by N.E.D.

See note on 40. 24.

72. 28 flowne him to a marke. 73. 6 read word at my need. This is an allusion to the benefit of clergy. Many not belonging to that class found occasion to use it; Jonson himself escaped by this resort after the murder of Gabriel Spencer (cf. 19. 25 and note). The present passage, then, is equivalent to: May I receive no mercy, if ever I should be tried and condemned.

73. 22 disparagement. 'Before the abolition of the Court of Wards in the twelfth year of Charles the Second, the heir of the king's tenant, holding lands in capite, was during nonage ward of the king, who might sell or present the right of guardianship and bestowal in marriage. Kings' favourites had made fortunes by traffic in the marrying of wealthy wards.'-Morley, Mem. 153. 'While the infant was in ward, the guardian had the power of tendering him or her a suitable match, without disparagement or inequality; which if the infants refused, they forfeited the value of the marriage, valorem maritagii; that is, so much as a jury would assess, or any one would bona fide give to the guardian for such an alliance.' -Blackstone's Commentaries, 2. 5. 5.

74. 6-7 'There is excellent sense in Grace's answer. She is one of Jonson's few estimable females.'-G. She may be estimable, but she is not winning. The creation of a lovable woman was beyond Jonson's art.

74. 13 is the winde there? Cf. 'Is the wind in that door?' (1 Hen. IV, 3. 3. 102), which was a common expression, meaning 'Is that how the case stands?'

74. 21 The Bull with the fiue legs. Again mentioned in 118. 4. See note on 'Monsters', 52. 12.