We are not aware whether it has been noticed how closely this passage is foreshadowed by dialogue occurring in a much earlier play. Both turn upon the notion of a species of property being acquired in set forms of swearing. The play in question is from the pen of Richard Brome, and is further useful to our purpose as showing that this eccentricity had not abated in the interval that elapsed between Jonson and Sheridan. Under the title of 'Covent Garden Weeded,' it exposes the riotous doings that prevailed in that joyous locality. It was to cleanse this new plantation of the human nettles and creepers that found shelter in its precincts that the drama purports to have been designed. The builders had just completed the spacious piazza which occupies a portion of the site of the convent garden formerly existing there. Among the rollicking societies that were springing up in this new settlement, was one known, at least in the comedy, as the "Brothers of the Blade and the Batoon." One scene in this play discloses the brethren in a state of carnival. They are engaged in passing a novice into the ranks of the order, their captain thus exhorting the new-comer as to their social code:-- "_Captain._ I have given you all the rudiments and my most fatherly advice withall. "_Clot._ And the last is that I should not swear; how make you that good? "_Captain._ That's most unnecessary, for look you, the best, and even the lewdest of my sons do forbear it, not out of conscience, but for very good ends, and instead of an oath, furnish the mouth with some affected protestation. _As I am honest!_ it is so. _I am no honest man!_ if it be not. _'Ud take me!_ if I lie to you. _Nev'rigo! nev'rstir! I vow!_ and such like. "_Clot._ I'll have _I vow_, then. "_Nick._ Nay, but you shall not, that's mine. "_Clot._ Can't you lend it me now and then, brother?"