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BOULT. Ay, she quickly pooped him ; she made him roast-meat for worms:-but I'll go search the market. Exit BOULT.

· PAND. Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion to live quietly, and so give

over.

BAWD. Why, to give over, I pray you? is it a shame 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 some pretty estate, 'twere not amiss to keep our door hatched. Besides, the sore terms we stand

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Ay, she quickly pooped him;] The following passage in The Devil's Charter, a tragedy, 1607, will sufficiently explain this singular term:

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foul Amazonian trulls,

"Whose lanterns are still lighted in their poops."

MALONE.

This phrase (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 same 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 expression are given in former notes on our author. So, in Antony and Cleopatra: his taints and honours

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"Wag'd equal with him." STEEVENS. Again, more appositely, in Othello:

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

to keep our door hatched.] The doors or hatches of brothels, in the time of our author, seem to have had some distinguishing mark. So, in Cupid's Whirligig, 1607: "Set some 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 representation of a celebrated brothel on the Bank-side

upon with the gods, will be strong 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.

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

A hatch is a half-door, usually placed within a street-door, admitting people into the entry of a house, but preventing their access to its lower apartments, or its stair-case. Thus, says the Syracusan Dromio in The Comedy of Errors, to the Dromio of

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

Ephesus: "Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch."

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

This domestick portcullis perhaps was necessary to our ancient brothels. Secured within such a barrier, Mrs. Overdone could parley with her customers; refuse admittance to the shabby visitor, bargain with the rich gallant, defy the beadle, or keep the constable at bay.

From having been therefore her usual defence, the hatch at last became an unequivocal denotement of her trade; for though the hatch with a flat top was a constant 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 assured by Mr. Walsh, (a native of Ireland, and one of the compositors engaged on the present edition of Shakspeare,) the entries to the Royal, Halifax, and Dublin bagnios in the city of Dublin, still derive convenience or security from hatches, the spikes of which are unsurmountable.

This long explanation (to many readers unnecessary) is imputable to the preceding wooden cut, from the repetition of which I might have excused myself. As it is possible, however, that I may stand in the predicament of poor Sancho, who could not discern the enchanted castles that were so distinctly visible to his master'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 must suppose, that my ingenious fellow-labourer, on future consideration, will class his hatch with the air-drawn dagger, and join with me in Macbeth's exclamation-" There's no such thing."

Let me add, that if the Ruffian (as here represented) was an ostensible appendage to brothels, they must have been regulated on very uncommon principles; for instead of holding out allurements, they must have exhibited terrors. Surely, the Ruffian could never have appeared nisi dignus vindice nodus inciderat, till his presence became necessary to extort the wages of prostitution, or secure some other advantage to his employer.

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

PAND. As well as we! ay, and better too; we offend worse. Neither is our profession any trade; it's no calling:-but here comes Boult.

Enter the Pirates, and BoULT, dragging in
MARINA.

BOULT. Come your ways. [To MARINA.]—My masters, you say she's a virgin?

1 PIRATE. O, sir, we doubt it not.

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BOULT. Master, I have gone thorough for this piece, you see if you like her, so; if not, I have lost my earnest.

BAWD. Boult, has she any qualities?

BOULT. She has a good face, speaks well, and has excellent good clothes; there's no further necessity of qualities can make her be refused.

BAWD. What's her price, Boult?

BOULT. I cannot be bated one doit of a thousand pieces.?

fore, in my opinion, no more authenticity to boast of, than the contemporary wooden cuts illustrative of the Siege of Troy.

STEEVENS.

Come, other sorts offend as well as we.] From her husband's answer, I suspect the poet wrote-Other trades &c. MALONE. Malone suspects that we should read-other trades, but that is unnecessary; the word sorts has the same sense, and means professions or conditions of life. So, Macbeth says:

"I have won

"Golden opinion of all sorts of people." M. MASON.

I have gone thorough-] i. e. I have bid a high price for her, gone far in my attempt to purchase her. STEEVENS. "I cannot be bated one doit of a thousand pieces.] This speech should seem to suit the Pirate. However, it may belong

PAND. Well, follow me, my masters; you shall have your money presently. Wife, take her in instruct her what she has to do, that she may not be raw in her entertainment.8

[Exeunt Pander and Pirates.

BAWD. Boult, take you the marks of her; the colour of her hair, complexion, height, age, with warrant of her virginity; and cry, He that will give most, shall have her first.' Such a maidenhead were no cheap thing, if men were as they have been. Get this done as I command you.

BOULT. Performance shall follow. [Exit BOULt. MAR. Alack, that Leonine was so slack, so slow! (He should have struck, not spoke ;) or that these pirates,

(Not enough barbarous), had not overboard Thrown me, to seek my mother!2

to Boult.

-

I cannot get them to bate me one doit of a thousand pieces. MALONE.

"that she may not be raw in her entertainment.] Unripe, unskilful. So, in Hamlet: "- and yet but raw neither, in respect of his quick sail.”

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MALONE.

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age,] So the quarto, 1619. The first copy has her age. MALONE.

and cry, He that will give most, shall have her first.] The prices of first and secondary prostitution are exactly settled in the old prose romance already quoted: "Go thou, and make a crye through the citye that of all men that shall enhabyte with her carnally, the fyrst shall gyve me a pounde of golde, and after that echone a peny of golde." STEEVENS.

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or that these pirates

(Not enough barbarous,) had not overboard
Thrown me, to seek my mother!] Old copy:

(Not enough barbarous,) had not o'erboard thrown me,
For to seek &c. STEEVENS.

suspect the second not was inadvertently repeated by the compositor. Marina, I think, means to say, Alas, how unlucky

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