Note 941 — X THE ACTOR'S QUALITY

Dekker, The Wonderfull Yeare (1603, Works, i. 100), 'The worst players Boy stood vpon his good parts, swearing tragicall and busking oathes, that how vilainously soeuer he randed, or what bad and vnlawfull action soeuer he entred into, he would in despite of his honest audience be halfe a sharer (at leaste) at home, or else strowle (thats to say trauell) with some notorious wicked floundring company abroad'; News from Hell (1606, Works, ii. 146), 'a companie of country players, ... that with strowling were brought to deaths door'; Belman of London (1608, Works, iii. 81), 'Nor Players they bee, who out of an ambition to weare the best Ierkin (in a Strowling company) or to Act great Parts, forsake the stately and our more than Romaine Cittie Stages, to trauel vpon the hard hoofe from village to village for chees & butter-milke'; Lanthorne and Candlelight (1608, Works, iii. 255), 'Strowlers; a proper name given to country players that (without socks) trotte from towne to towne vpon the hard hoofe'; The Raven's Almanac (1609, Works, iv. 196), 'Players, by reason they shal have a hard winter, and must travell on the hoofe, will lye sucking there for pence and twopences, like young pigges at a sow newly farrowed'.