[47] It appears to have been the custom for the sheriff to have a post set up at his door as an indication of his office. So in the "Twelfth Night" of Shakespeare, Malvolio says of Cesario, "He'll stand at your door like a sheriff's post." See notes on act i. sc. 5, where the passage in the text has been quoted by Steevens. [48] Our poet alludes here to the methods which are still frequently practised amongst beggars, of making artificial sores. The reader will find many of these mentioned by Prigg in act ii. sc. 1 of the "Beggar's Bush" of Beaumont and Fletcher. In the quarto this speech is in horrible metre; and the same may be observed of nearly the whole remainder of this scene, and until the clown quits the stage in the next. [49] [Old copy and Dilke, _heap on_.] [50] "'Sfoot I hate," [_i.e._, _ha't_] is the reading of the 4o. [51] Caps of maintenance are said to be carried in state on occasions of great solemnity before the mayors of several cities in England. Stephen had before imagined himself arrayed with the gown and chain of an alderman; he is now describing his consequence as the future Lord Mayor of London. [52] The dice. [53] It is to be remembered that the doctor here introduced is a _divine_, and not a physician. [54] [See "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," ii., 293-5.] [55] [Full of wit] So in "Hamlet"-- "How _pregnant_ sometimes his replies are." [56] [If.] [57] [Thornbacks.] [58] Our poet alludes here to a passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. xii. vers. 7 and 8. [59] Gold was formerly used in medicine, and many imaginary virtues ascribed to it. [60] These _suburb gardens_ and _garden-houses_ are constantly mentioned by the writers of that age. An extract from Stubbs's "Anatomy of Abuses," 1585 (quoted by Mr Gifford in a note on "The Bondman"), will afford the reader some information: "In the suberbes of the citie, they [the women] have _gardens_ either paled or walled round about very high, with their harbours and bowers fit for the purpose; and lest they might be espied in these open places, they have their _banqueting houses_, with galleries, turrets, and what not, therein sumptuously erected, wherein they may, and doubtless do, many of them, play the filthy persons." ACT II., SCENE I. _Enter_ HOST BOXALL, STEPHEN, JACK, DICK, _and_ HUGH. HOST. Welcome still, my merchants of _bona Speranza_; what's your traffic, bullies? What ware deal you in?--cards, dice, bowls, or pigeon-holes? Sort 'em yourselves: either passage, Novem, or mumchance?[61] Say, my brave bursemen, what's your recreation? STEPH. Dice, mine host. Is there no other room empty? HOST. Not a hole unstopped in my house but this, my thrifts. JACK. Miscall us not for our money, good mine host; we are none of your thrifts. We have 'scaped that scandal long ago. DICK. Yes, his thrifts we are, Jack, though not our own.