“Thou must carry beside, leather, tallow, beef, bacon, bell-metal and everything: And for these good commodities, trifles into England thou must bring, As bugles to make bables, coloured bones, glass beads to make bracelets withal, For every day gentlewomen of England do ask for such trifles from stall to stall: And you must bring more, as amber, jet, coral, crystal, and every such bable That is slight, pretty, and pleasant: they care not to have it profitable. And if they demand wherefore your wares and merchandise agree, You must say ‘jet will take up a straw: amber will make one fat: Coral will look pale when you be sick, and crystal staunch blood,’ So with lying, flattering and glosing, you must utter your ware, And you shall win me to your will, if you can deceitfully swear. • • • • • _Lucre._ Then, Signor Mercatore, I am forthwith to send ye From hence to search for some new toys in Barbary and in Turkey; Such trifles as you think will please wantons best, For you know in this country ’tis their chiefest request. _Mercatore._ Indeed, de gentlewomans here buy so much vain toys Dat we strangers laugh-a to tink wherein dey have their joys.” The suppressing of the Religious Houses produced, for a time, a great deal of hardship and difficulty. For not only were the friars turned out into the streets, but all the people living upon the monasteries were deprived of their daily bread; many of these unfortunates took to the road and became tramps, vagabonds, masterless men and thieves; many took refuge in those parts of London which were outside the jurisdiction of the City. London, indeed, was the place which the masterless man regarded as a veritable Paradise. They flocked up to London from all quarters; they were constantly being turned out and as constantly coming back again. When Queen Elizabeth once drove out to the country cottage of Islington, she was mobbed by a gang of vagabonds who accosted her with clamours; they harboured in the brick kilns there. In some parts close to London, as Hyde Park Corner and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, no one would venture after dark. Men took arms into their bedrooms at night, ready for use. Generally it seems that they hung a drawn sword at the bedside. The ’prentices, however, were the best protectors to a house. They slept in the shop, if there were a shop; or if there were no shop they slept somewhere on the ground floor, as is evident from the edifying revelations of “Meriton Latron,” in which it is shown how easily the ’prentices could get out at night for these riotous and profligate meetings and drinkings. I suppose it matters nothing that this writer belongs to the next century. In such small matters the world is conservative. According to this authority, it was common for ’prentices to rob their masters, exchanging with each other