Note 1174 — ACT V. SCENE I.

A gage, &c. &c.] i.e. A quart pot of good wine in an ale-house of London is better than a cloak, meat, bread, butter-milk (or whey), or porridge, which we steal in the country. O I would lie all the day, O I would lie all the night, by the mass, under the woods (or bushes), by the mass, in the stocks, and wear bolts (or fetters), and lie till a palliard lay with my wench, so my drunken head might quaff wine well. Avast to the highway, let us hence, &c. See Dekker’s Lanthorne and Candlelight, 1612, sig. C 2, 3; and The Groundworke of Conny-catching, 1592, sig. A 2. In the fourth line, as Reed observes, “lay” should probably be “lap.” A palliard is a beggar born: “he likewise is cald a Clapperdugeon: his vpper garment is an old cloake made of as many pieces patch’d together, as there be villanies in him,” &c. &c. Dekker’s Belman of London, 1608, sig. D.