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and, as he said to me, - it was no longer ago than Wednesday last, - Neighbour Quickly, fays he; mafter Dumb, our minister, was by then; - Neighbour Quickly, fays he, receive those that are civil; for, faith he, you are in an ill name; - now he faid fo, I can tell whereupon; for, says he, you are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore take heed what guests you receive: Receive, says he, no fwaggering companions. There comes none here; you would bless you to hear what he said: - no I'll no swaggerers.

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FAL. He's no swaggerer, hostess; a tame cheater,

a tame cheater,) Gamester and cheater were, in Shakspeare's age, synonymous terms. Ben Jonson has an epigram on Captain Hazard, the cheater.

A tame cheater, however, as Mr. Whalley observes to me, appears to be a cant phrase. So, in Beaumont and Fletcher's Fair Maid of the Inn:

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and will be drawn into the net,

"By this decoy-duck, this tame cheater.

Greene, in his Mihil Mumchance, has the following passage : "They call their art by a new-found name, as cheating, themselves cheators, and the dice cheters, borrowing the term from among our lawyers, with whom all fuch casuals as fall to the lord at the holding of his leets, as waifes, ftraies, and such like, be called chetes, and are accustomably faid to be escheted to the lord's use." So, likewife in Lord Coke's charge at Norwich, 1607: "But if you will be content to let the escheator alone, and not looke into his ations, he will be contented by deceiving you to change his name, taking unto himselfe the two last syllables only, with the es left out, and so turn cheater. Hence perhaps the derivation of the verb to cheat, which I do not recollect to have met with among our most ancient writers. In The Bell-man of London, by T. Decker, 5th edit. 1640, the fame derivation of the word is given: " Of all which lawes, the highest in place is the cheating law, or the art of winning money by false dyce. Those that practice this study call themselves cheaters, the dyce cheators, and the money which they purchase cheate; borrowing the terme from our common lawyers, with whom all fuch casuals as fall to the lord at the holding of his leetes, as waifes, straies, and such like, are said to

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he; you may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound: he will not swagger with a Barbary hen, if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance. Call him up, drawer.

Host. Cheater, call you him? I will bar no ho nest man my house, nor no cheater: 4 But I do not love swaggering; by my troth, I am the worse, when one says - fwagger: feel, masters, how I shake; look you, I warrant you.

DOL. So you do, hostess.

Host. Do I? yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers.

Enter PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and Page.

PIST. 'Save you, fir John!

FAL. Welcome ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge you with a cup of sack: do you discharge upon mine hostess.

PIST. I will discharge upon her, fir John, with two bullets.

FAL. She is pistol-proof, fir; you shall hardly offend her.

Host. Come, I'll drink no proofs, nor no bul

be efcheated to the lordes use, and are called cheates." This account of the word is likewise given in A Manifeft Detection of Dice-play, printed by Vele, in the reign of Henry VIII. STEEVENS.

4 I will bar no honeft man my house, nor no cheater:) The humour of this confifts in the woman's mistaking the title of cheater, (which our ancestors gave to him whom we now, with better manners, call a gamefter,) for that officer of the exchequer called an efcheator, well known to the common people of that time; and named, either corruptly or fatirically, a cheater. WARBURTON.

lets: I'll drink no more than will do me good, for no man's pleasure, I.5

PIST. Then to you, mistress Dorothy; I will charge you.

DOL. Charge me? I scorn you, scurvy companion. What! you poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate! Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for your master.

PIST. I know you, mistress Dorothy. DOL. Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! by this wine, I'll trust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play the faucy cuttle with me." Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you basket

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I'll drink no more - for no man's pleasure, I.] This should not be printed as a broken sentence. The duplication of the pronoun was very common: in The London Prodigal we have, " I scorn service, I. " - " I am an ass, I," says the stage-keeper in the induction to Bartholomew Fair; and Kendal thus translates a well known epigram of Martial:

"I love thee not, Sabidius,

"I cannot tell thee why:

" I can faie naught but this alone,

"I do not love thee, I. "

In Kendall's Collection there are many translations from Claudian,

Aufonius, the Anthologia, &c. FARMER.

So, in King Richard III. A& III. fc. ii:

" I do not like these separate councils, I. " STEEVENS.

Again, in Romeo and Juliet :

" I will not budge, for no man's pleasure. I,"

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Again, in King Edward II. by Marlowe, 1598:
I am none of those common peasants, I.
The French ftill use this idiom; - Je suis Parifien, moi.

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MALONE.

filthy bung, In the cant of thievery, to nip a bung was to cut a purse; and among an explanation of many of these terms in Martin Mark-all's Apologie to the Bell-man of London, 1610, it is faid that "Bung is now used for a pocket, heretofore for a purse."

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STEEVENS.

an you play the faucy cuttle with me.] It appears from Greene's Art of Coneycatching, that cuttle and cuttle-boung were the

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hilt stale juggler, you! - Since when, I pray you, fir? - What, with two points on your shoulder? much! 9

PIST. I will murder your ruff for this. FAL. No more, Pistol; I would not have you go off here: discharge yourself of our company,

Pistol.

Host. No, good captain Pistol; not here, sweet captain. DOL. Captain! thou abominable damn'd cheater,

cant terms for the knife used by the sharpers of that age to cut the bottoms of purses, which were then worn hanging at the girdle. Or the allufion may be to the foul language thrown out by Pistol, which she means to compare with fuch filth as the cuttle-fish ejects,

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STEEVENS.

with two points - ) As a mark of his commiffion.

JOHNSON.

- much!] Much was a common expression of disdain at that time, of the same sense with that more modern one, Marry come up. The Oxford editor, not apprehending this, alters it to march. WARBURTON.

Dr. Warburton is right. Much! is used thus in Ben Jonfon's Volpone:

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But you shall eat it. Much!"

Again, in Every Man in his Humour:
Much, wench! or much, fon!"
Again, in Every Man out of his Humour:

"To charge me bring my grain unto the markets:
Ay, much! when I have neither barn nor garner.

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"

STEEVENS.

* No more, Pistol; &c. ) This is from the oldest edition of 1600.

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POPE.

Captain? thou abominable damn'd cheater, &c.] Pistol's character seems to have been a common one on the stage in the time of Shakspeare. In A Woman's a Weathercock, by N. Field, 1612, there is a perfonage of the same stamp, who is thus described:

"Thou unspeakable rafcal, thou a foldier !
"That with thy flops and cat-a-mountain face,
"Thy blather chaps, and thy robuftious words,

art thou not ashamed to be call'd-captain? If captains were of my mind, they would truncheon you out, for taking their names upon you before you have earn'd them. You a captain, you flave! for what? for tearing a poor whore's ruff in a bawdyhouse? He a captain! Hang him, rogue! He lives upon mouldy stew'd prunes, and dried cakes. 4 A captain! these villains will make the word captain

as odious as the word occupy; 5 which was an ex

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"Fright'ft the poor whore, and terribly doft exact
"A weekly fubfidy, twelve pence a piece,
"Whereon thou livest; and on my confcience,
" Thou fnap'st besides with cheats and cut-purfes.

MALONE.

4 He lives upon mouldy ftew'd prunes, and dried cakes.] That is, he lives on the refuse provisions of bawdy houses and pastry-cooks shops. Stew'd prunes, when mouldy, were perhaps formerly fold at a cheap rate, as ftale pies and cakes are at present. The allufion to stew'd prunes, and all that is neceffary to be known on that fubjet, has been already explained in the first part of this hiftorical play, Vol. XII. p. 342, n. 8. STEEVENS.

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as odious as the word occupy; ) So, Ben Jonson in his Discoveries: "Many, out of their own obscene apprehenfions, refuse proper and fit words; as, occupy, nature," &c. STEEVENS.

This word is used with different fenfes in the following jest, from Wits, Fits, and Fancies 1614: "One threw ftones at an yllfauor'd old womans Owle, and the olde woman faid: Faith (fir knaue) you are well occupy'd, to throw ftones at my poore Owle, that doth you no harme. Yea marie (answered the wag) so would you be better occupy'd too (I wiffe) if you were young againe, and had a better face. " RITSON.

Occupant feems to have been formerly a term for a woman of the town, as occupier was for a wencher. So, in Marfston's Satires, 1599:

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"Are cling'd fo close, like dew-worms in the morne,
"That he'll not ftir."

Again, in a song by Sir T. Overbury, 1616 :
" Here's water to quench maiden's fires,
" Here's spirits for old occupiers. MALONE,

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