And they have seiz'd Marina. Let her go: There's no hope she'll return. I'll swear she's dead, And thrown into the sea.-But I'll see further; Perhaps they will but please themselves upon her, Not carry her aboard. If she remain,

Whom they have ravish'd, must by me be slain.

SCENE III.

Mitylene. A Room in a Brothel.

Enter PANDER, Bawd, and BOULT.

PAND. Boult.

BOULT. Sir.

[Exit.

PAND. Search the market narrowly; Mitylene is full of gallants. We lost too much money this mart, by being too wenchless.

BAWD. We were never so much out of creatures. We have but poor three, and they can do no more than they can do ; and with continual action are even as good as rotten.

6

PAND. Therefore let's have fresh ones, whate'er we pay for them. If there be not a conscience to be used in every trade, we shall never prosper 7.

second of July, 1588, and sent to Dartmouth. This play therefore, we may conclude, was not written till after that periodThe making one of this Spaniard's ancestors a pirate, was probably relished by the audience in those days. MALONE.

In Robert Greene's Spanish Masquerado, 1589, the curious reader may find a very particular account of this Valdes, who was commander of the Andalusian troops, and then prisoner in England. STEEVENS.

-

We should probably read-These roving thieves.-The idea of roguery is necessarily implied in the word thieves. M. MASON. and with continual action-] Old copies-and they with, &c. The word they was evidently repeated by the carelessness of the compositor. Malone.

BAWD. Thou say'st true: 'tis not the bringing up of poor bastards, as I think, I have brought up some eleven→→

BOULT. Ay, to eleven, and brought them down again. But shall I search the market?

BAWD. What else, man? The stuff we have, a strong wind will blow it to pieces, they are so pitifully sodden.

PAND. Thou say'st true; they're too unwholesome o' conscience'. The poor Transilvanian is dead, that lay with the little baggage.

7 Therefore let's have fresh ones, whate'er we pay for them. If there be not a conscience to be used in every trade, we shall never prosper.] The sentiments incident to vicious professions suffer little change within a century and a half.-This speech is much the same as that of Mother Cole, in The Minor: "Tip him an old trader! Mercy on us, where do you expect to go when you die, Mr. Loader?" STEEVENS.

8Thou say'st true: 'tis not the bringing up of poor bastards,] There seems to be something wanting. Perhaps-" that will do-" or some such words. The author, however, might have intended an imperfect sentence. MALONE.

9 AY, TO eleven, and brought them down again.] I have brought up (i. e. educated) says the Bawd, some eleven. Yes, (answers Boult) to eleven (i. e. as far as eleven years of age) and then brought them down again. The latter clause of the sentence requires no explanation.

Thus, in The Play of The Wether, by John Heywood, 4to. bl. 1. Mery Report says:

"Oft tyme is sene both in court and towne,

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Longe be women a bryngynge up, and sone brought downe."

STEEVENS.

The modern copies read-I too eleven. The true reading, which is found in the quarto 1609, was pointed out by Mr. Steevens. MALONE.

Thou say'st true; THEY'RE TOo unwholesome o' conscience.] The old copies read-there's two unwholesome o' conscience. The preceding dialogue shows that they are erroneous. The complaint had not been made of two, but of all the stuff they had. According to the present regulation, the pandar merely assents to what his wife had said. The words two and too are perpetually confounded in the old copies. MALONE.

BOULT. Ay, she quickly pooped him2; she made him roast-meat for worms:-but I'll go search the market. [Exit BOULT. PAND. Three or four thousand chequins were as pretty a proportion to live quietly, and so give

over.

BAWD. Why, to give over, I pray you? is it a shame to get when we are old?

PAND. O, our credit comes not in like the commodity nor the commodity wages not with the danger; therefore, if in our youths we could pick up some pretty estate, 'twere not amiss to keep our door hatched. Besides, the sore terms we stand upon with the gods, will be strong with us for giving

over.

2 Ay, she quickly POOPED him :] The following passage in The Devil's Charter, a tragedy, 1607, will sufficiently explain this singular term:

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foul Amazonian trulls,

"Whose lanterns are still lighted in their poops."

MALONE.

This phrase (whatever be its meaning) occurs in Have With You to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is Up, &c. 1596: "But we shall l'envoy him, and trumpe and poope him well enough-."

The same word is used by Dryden, in his Wild Gallant:

He's poopt too." STEEVENS.

3 - the commodity WAGES not with the danger;] i. e. is not equal to it. Several examples of this expression are given in former notes on our author. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:

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his taints and honours

Wag'd equal with him." STEEVENS.

Again, more appositely in Othello:

"To wake and wage a danger profitless." MALOne.

- to keep our door HATCHED.] The doors or hatches of brothels, in the time of our author, seem to have had some distinguishing mark. So, in Cupid's Whirligig, 1607: "Set some picks upon your hatch, and, I pray, profess to keep a bawdy-house."

Prefixed to an old pamphlet entitled Holland's Leaguer, 4to. 1632, is a representation of a celebrated brothel on the Bank-side near the Globe playhouse, from which the annexed cut has been made. We have here the hatch exactly delineated. The man with the pole-ax was called the Ruffian. MALONE.

Vnto this Island and great Plutoes Court, none are deny'd that willingly resort, Charon or'e Phlegeton will set on shoare,

and Cerberus will guard you to the doore: Where dainty Deuils drest in humane shape, vpon your senses soone will make a rape. They that come freely to this house of sinne, in Hell as freely may have entrance in.

BAWD. Come, other sorts offend as well as we 5. PAND. As well as we! ay, and better too; we cles to which it refers, were originally applied by me to the illustration of the term Pict-hatch in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

A hatch is a half-door, usually placed within a street-door, admitting people into the entry of a house, but preventing their access to its lower apartments, or its stair-case. Thus, says the Syracusan Dromio in The Comedy of Errors, to the Dromio of Ephesus: Either get thee from the door, or sit down at the hatch."

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When the top of a hatch was guarded by a row of pointed iron spikes, no person could reach over, and undo its fastening, which was always within-side, and near its bottom.

This domestick portcullis perhaps was necessary to our ancient brothels. Secured within such a barrier, Mrs. Overdone could parley with her customers; refuse admittance to the shabby visitor, bargain with the rich gallant, defy the beadle, or keep the constable at bay.

From having been therefore her usual defence, the hatch at last became an unequivocal denotement of her trade; for though the hatch with a flat top was a constant attendant on butteries in great families, colleges, &c. the hatch with spikes on it was peculiar to our early houses of amorous entertainment.-Nay, as I am assured by Mr. Walsh, (a native of Ireland, and one of the compositors engaged on the present edition of Shakspeare,) [Mr. Steevens's,] the entries to the Royal, Halifax, and Dublin bagnios in the city of Dublin, still derive convenience or security from hatches, the spikes of which are insurmountable.

This long explanation (to many readers unnecessary) is imputable to the preceding wooden cut, from the repetition of which I might have excused myself. As it is possible, however, that I may stand in the predicament of poor Sancho, who could not discern the enchanted castles that were so distinctly visible to his master's opticks, I have left our picture of an ancient brothel where I found it. It certainly exhibits a house, a lofty door, a wicket with a grate in it, a row of garden-rails, and a drawbridge. As for hatch-let my readers try if they can find one.

I must suppose, that my ingenious fellow-labourer, on future consideration, will class his hatch with the air-drawn dagger, and join with me in Macbeth's exclamation—“ There's no such thing."

Let me add, that if the Ruffian (as here represented) was an ostensible appendage to brothels, they must have been regulated on very uncommon principles; for instead of holding out allurements, they must have exhibited terrors. Surely, the Ruffian could never have appeared nisi dignus vindice nodus inciderat, till his presence became necessary to extort the wages of prostitution, or secure some other advantage to his employer.