Note 1736 — BOOK IV THE PLAY-HOUSES (continued 5)
Reading edition
Cf. p. 540 (Tatham), and the notices of Hentzner and Platter (ch. xvi, introd.). In K. B. P. the wife comes with her pockets full of sweetmeats, which she bestows upon the actors, liquorice (i. 77), green ginger (ii. 279), sugar-candy (ii. 366), and her husband brings beer (iii. 631). The liquorice would open Ralph’s pipes; cf. ch. xii (Westminster) and C. Revels, ind. 215, ‘I would thou hadst some sugar candyed, to sweeten thy mouth’; Overbury, Characters (ed. Rimbault, 113, A Puny-Clarke), ‘Hee eats ginger-bread at a play-house’.