Note 114 — SCENE III.

For commodities, &c.] i. e. for wares, of which the needy borrower made what he could. Our old writers are extremely pleasant on the heterogeneous articles which the usurers of their days forced on the necessity of the thoughtless spendthrift in lieu of the money for which he had rashly signed. Fielding has imitated them in his Miser, without adding much to their humour; and Foote, in The Minor, has servilely followed his example. The spectators of those scenes probably thought that the writers had gone beyond real life, and drawn on imagination for their amusement: but transactions (not altogether proper, perhaps, to be specified here) have actually taken place in our own times, which leave their boldest conceptions at an humble distance; and prove, beyond a doubt, that, in the arts of raising money, the invention of the most fertile poet must yield to that of the meanest scrivener.—Gifford.