HEAR. If I don't serve him A trick he thinks not of----
SLICER. Didst mark how he Did apply himself to the knight all dinner! I am afraid he plays the cunning factor, And in another's name wooes for himself.
HEAR. Let it go on; let it work something farther: 'Tis almost ripe enough to crush. He hath not Crept high enough as yet to be sensible Of any fall.
SLICER. Now is the time, or never. This night, you know, he and his doxy meet; Let me alone to give them their good-morrow. If that we carry things but one week longer Without discovery, farewell London then: The world's our own. He ne'er deserves to thrive That doth not venture for it: wealth's then sweet, When bought with hazard. Fate this law hath set; The fool inherits, but the wise must get.
[176] [See Halliwell's Dictionary, _v._ Haro--the same word, and Littrè's French Dictionary. A case occurred a few years ago, in which the ancient _Clameur de Haro_ was raised at Jersey, in the Presbyterian Church there. But the word is here employed as a mere ejaculation or exclamation, and, it must be added, without much propriety.]
[179] See notes to "Midsummer Night's Dream," act ii. sc. 1, [and "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," 1870, iii. 39 _et seq._]
[183] See Stowe's "Survey of London," Strype's edition, 1720, vol. I. bk. ii. p. 18.
[185] The name of Chaucer's cock and hen.--_Steevens._
[186] So that this play was written in 1634.--_Pegge._
[187] These rings were sometimes made out of the handles of decayed coffins, and in more ancient times were consecrated at the ceremony of _creeping [to] the cross_, of which an account is given in a note on the "Merry Devil of Edmonton," with reference to the observations of Dr Percy on the "Northumberland Household Book," 1512.--_Steevens._
Cramp-rings were formerly worn as charms for curing of the cramp. See Brookes's "Natural History," vol. i. p. 206.--_Pegge._
Andrew Borde, in his "Book of the Introduction of Knowledge," 1542, says: "The kynges of Englande ... doth halowe every yere _crampe rynges_, the which rynges worne on ones fynger doth helpe them the whyche hath the crampe." Dr Percy, in his notes on the "Northumberland Household Book," speaking of these rings observes "that our ancient kings even in those dark times of superstition, do not seem to have affected to cure the king's evil; at least in the MSS. above quoted there is no mention or hint of any power of that sort. This miraculous gift was left to be claimed by the Stuarts: our ancient Plantagenets were humbly content to cure the _cramp_." I cite this passage merely to remark that the learned editor of the above curious volume has been betrayed into a mistake by the manner in which the _cramp rings_ are mentioned in Mr Anstis's MSS. The power of curing the king's evil was certainly claimed by many of the Plantagenets. The above Dr Borde, who wrote in the time of Henry VIII., says, "The kynges of England, by the power that God hath given to them, doth make sicke men whole of a sickness called the _Kynges Evyll_." In Laneham's "Account of the Entertainment of Kennilworth Castle," it is said, "And also by her highness accustomed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the paynful and dangerous diseaz called the _King's Evil_, for that kings and queens of this realm withoout oother medsin (save only by handling and prayer) only doo cure it." Polydore Virgil asserts the same, and William Tooker, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, [1597,] published a book on this subject. For the knowledge of this last book I am obliged to Dr Douglas's excellent treatise, called "The Criterion," p. 191, &c.