Note 154 — Come buy this new Ballad, before you doe goe; If you raile at the Author, I know what I know.

This plea was put in for mitigation of punishment, the person presumably being a clerk or learned person, exemplified by his being able to read, the punishment then being commuted to burning on the hand. In later days it became a farce, as a bribe would have the effect of being apparently branded with only a warm or cold iron.