There's no hope fhe'll return. I'll fwear fhe's dead, And thrown into the fea. But I'll fee further; Perhaps they will but please themselves upon her, Not carry her aboard. If fhe remain,

Whom they have ravish'd, must by me be flain.

[Exit.

SCENE III.

Mitylene. A Room in a Brothel.

Enter PANDER, Bawd, and BOULT.

PAND. Boult.

BOULT. Sir.

PAND. Search the market narrowly; Mitylene is full of gallants. We loft too much money this mart, by being too wenchless.

BAWD. We were never fo much out of creatures. We have but poor three, and they can do no more than they can do; and with continual action ❝ are even as good as rotten.

PAND. Therefore let's have frefh ones, whate'er we pay for them. If there be not a confcience to be used in every trade, we shall never prosper."

We should probably read-Thefe roving thieves.-The idea of roguery is neceffarily implied in the word thieves.

M. MASON.

and with continual action-] Old copies-and they with &c. The word they was evidently repeated by the carelefsness of the compofitor. MALONE.

7 Therefore let's have fresh ones, whate'er we pay for them. If there be not a confcience to be used in every trade, we shall never profper.] The fentiments incident to vicious profeflions

BAWD. Thou fay'ft true: 'tis not the bringing up of poor bastards,8 poor baftards, as I think, I have brought up

fome eleven

BOULT. Ay, to eleven, and brought them down again." But thall I fearch the market?

BAWD. What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow it to pieces, they are fo pitifully fodden.

PAND. Thou fay't true; they are too unwholefome o'confcience.1 The poor Tranfilvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.

fuffer little change within a century and a half.-This fpeech is much the fame as that of Mother Cole, in The Minor: "" 'Tip him an old trader! Mercy on us, where do you expect to go when you die, Mr. Loader?" STEEVENS.

8 Thou Jay ft true: 'tis not the bringing up of poor baftards,] There feems to be fomething wanting. Perhaps that will door fome fuch words. The author, however, might have intended an imperfect fentence. MALONE.

Ay, to eleven, and brought them down again.] I have brought up (i. e. educated) fays the Bawd, fome eleven. Yes, (anfwers Boult) to eleven (i. e. as far as eleven years of age) and then brought them down again. The latter clause of the fentence requires no explanation.

Thus, in The Play of the Wether, by John Heywood, 4to. bl. 1. Mery Report says:

"Oft tyme is fene both in court and towne,

"Longe be women a brýngynge up, and fone brought downe." STEEVENS.

The modern copies read-I too eleven. The true reading, which is found in the quarto, 1609, was pointed out by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

The

Thou fayft true; they're too unwholefome o'confcience.] The old copies read-there's two unwholesome o' confcience. The preceding dialogue fhows that they are erroneous. complaint had not been made of two, but of all the stuff they had. According to the prefent regulation, the pandar merely affents to what his wife had faid. The words two and too are perpetually confounded in the old copies. MALONE.

2

BOULT. Ay, the quickly pooped him; fhe made him roaft-meat for worms:-but I'll go fearch the market. Exit BOULT. PAND. Three or four thoufand chequins were as pretty a proportion to live quietly, and fo give

over.

BAWD. Why, to give over, I pray you? is it a fhame to get when we are old?

PAND. O, our credit comes not in like the commodity; nor the commodity wages not with the danger; therefore, if in our youths we could pick up fome pretty eftate, 'twere not amifs to keep our door hatched.4 Befides, the fore terms we stand

2

Ay, he quickly pooped him ;] The following paffage in The Devil's Charter, a tragedy, 1607, will fufficiently explain this fingular term:

foul Amazonian trulls,

"Whofe lanterns are ftill lighted in their poops,"

MALONE.

This phrafe (whatever be its meaning) occurs in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, &c. 1596: "But we shall l'envoy him, and trumpe and poope him well enough-"

The fame word is used by Dryden, in his Wild Gallant : "He's poopt too." STEEVENS.

3

the commodity wages not with the danger :] i. e. is not equal to it. Several examples of this expreffion are given in former notes on our author. So, in Antony and Cleopatra : his taints and honours

66

Wag'd equal with him." STEEvens.

Again, more appofitely, in Othello:

"To wake and wage a danger profitlefs." MALONE.

to keep our door hatched.] The doors or hatches of brothels, in the time of our author, feem to have had fome diftinguishing mark. So, in Cupid's Whirligig, 1607: "Set fome picks upon your hatch, and, I pray, profess to keep a bawdy-house."

Prefixed to an old pamphlet entitled Holland's Leaguer, 4to. 1632, is a reprefentation of a celebrated brothel on the Bank-fide

upon with the gods, will be ftrong with us for giving

over.

near the Globe playhouse, from which the annexed cut has been made. We have here the hatch exactly delineated. The man, with the pole-ax was called the Ruffian. MALONE.

The precept from Cupid's Whirligig, and the paffage in Pericles to which it refers, were originally applied by me to the illuftration of the term Pict-hatch in The Merry Wives of Windfor. See Vol. V. p. 81, n. 4.

A hatch is a half-door, ufually placed within a street-door, admitting people into the entry of a houfe, but preventing their accefs to its lower apartments, or its ftair-cafe. Thus, fays the Syracufan Dromio in The Comedy of Errors, to the Dromio of

BAWD. Come, other forts offend as well as we.5

Ephefus : "Either get thee from the door, or fit down at the

hatch."

When the top of a hatch was guarded by a row of pointed iron spikes, no perfon could reach over, and undo its fastening, which was always within-fide, and near its bottom.

This domeftick portcullis perhaps was neceffary to our ancient brothels. Secured within fuch a barrier, Mrs. Overdone could parley with her customers; refuse admittance to the fhabby vifitor, bargain with the rich gallant, defy the beadle, or keep the constable at bay.

From having been therefore her ufual defence, the hatch at laft became an unequivocal denotement of her trade; for though the hatch with a flat top was a conftant attendant on butteries in great families, colleges, &c. the hatch with spikes on it was peculiar to our early houses of amorous entertainment.-Nay, as I am affured by Mr. Walsh, (a native of Ireland, and one of the compofitors engaged on the prefent edition of Shakspeare,) the entries to the Royal, Halifax, and Dublin bagnios in the city of Dublin, ftill derive convenience or fecurity from hatches, the Spikes of which are unfurmountable.

This long explanation (to many readers unneceffary) is imputable to the preceding wooden cut, from the repetition of which I might have excused myself. As it is poffible, however, that I may ftand in the predicament of poor Sancho, who could not difcern the enchanted caftles that were fo diftinctly visible to his mafter's opticks, I have left our picture of an ancient brothel where I found it. It certainly exhibits a house, a lofty door, a wicket with a grate in it, a row of garden-rails, and a drawbridge. As for hatch-let my readers try if they can find one.

I muft fuppofe, that my ingenious fellow-labourer, on future confideration, will clafs his hatch with the air-drawn dagger, and join with me in Macbeth's exclamation-" There's no fuch thing."

Let me add, that if the Ruffian (as here represented) was an oftenfible appendage to brothels, they muft have been regulated on very uncommon principles; for inftead of holding out allurements, they must have exhibited terrors. Surely, the Ruffian could never have appeared nifi dignus vindice nodus inciderat, till his prefence became neceffary to extort the wages of proftitution, or fecure fome other advantage to his employer.

The representation prefixed to Holland's Leaguer, has, there