to endure. I have some of them in Limbo Patrum,1 and there they are like to dance these three days;

Alliteration has given rise to many cant expressions, consisting of words paired together. Here we have cant names for the inhabitants of those places, who were notorious puritans, coined for the humour of the alliteration. In the mean time it must not be forgotten, that "precious limbs" was a common phrase of contempt for the puritans. T. WARTON.

Limehouse was, before the time of Shakspeare, and has continued to be ever since, the residence of those who furnish stores, sails, &c. for shipping. A great number of foreigners having been constantly employed in these manufactures (many of which were introduced from other countries) they assembled themselves under their several pastors, and a number of places of different worship were built in consequence of their respective associations. As they clashed in principles they had frequent quarrels, and the place has ever since been famous for the variety of its sects, and the turbulence of its inhabitants. It is not improbable that Shakspeare wrote the lambs of Limehouse.

A limb of the devil, is, however, a common vulgarism; and in A new Trick to cheat the Devil, 1639, the same kind of expression occurs:

"I am a puritan; one that will eat no pork,
"Doth use to shut his shop on Saturdays,
"And open them on Sunday: a familist,

"And one of the arch limbs of Belzebub.”

Again, in Every Man out of his Humour:

"I cannot abide these limbs of sattin, or rather Satan," &c. STEEVENS.

The word limb, in the sense of an impudently vicious person, is not uncommon in London at this day. In the north it is pronounced limp, and means a mischievous boy. The alteration suggested by Mr. Steevens is, however, sufficiently countenanced by the word tribulation, if in fact the allusion be to the puritans. RITSON

It appears from Stowe's Survey that the inhabitants of Towerhill were remarkably turbulent.

It may, however, be doubted, whether this passage was levelled at the spectators assembled in any of the theatres in our author's time. It may have been pointed at some apprentices and inferior citizens, who used occasionally to appear on the

besides the running banquet of two beadles, that is to come.

stage, in his time, for their amusement. The Palsgrave, or Hector of Germany, was acted in 1615, by a company of citi zens at the Red Bull; and The Hog hath lost his Pearle, a comedy, 1614, is said, in the title-page, to have been publickly acted by certain London 'prentices.

The fighting for bitten apples, which were then, as at present, thrown on the stage, [See the Induction to Bartholomew Fair: "Your judgment, rascal; for what?-Sweeping the stage? or, gathering up the broken apples?"-] and the words"which no audience can endure," might lead us to suppose that these thunderers at the play-house were actors, and not spectators.

The limbs of Limehouse, their dear brothers, were, perhaps, young citizens, who went to see their friends wear the buskin. A passage in The Staple of News, by Ben Jonson, Act III. sc. last, may throw some light on that now before us: "Why, I had it from my maid Joan Hearsay, and she had it from a limb of the school, she says, a little limb of nine years old.An there were no wiser than I, I would have ne'er a cunning school-master in England. They make all their scholars playboys. Is't not a fine sight, to see all our children made interluders? Do we pay our money for this? We send them to learn their grammar and their Terence, and they learn their play-books."-School-boys, apprentices, the students in the inns of court, and the members of the universities, all, at this time, wore occasionally the sock or the buskin. However, I am by no means confident that this is the true interpretation of the passage before us. MALONE.

It is evident that The Tribulation, from its site, must have been a place of entertainment for the rabble of its precincts, and the limbs of Limehouse such performers as furnished out the show. HENLEY.

The Tribulation does not sound in my ears like the name of any place of entertainment, unless it were particularly designed for the use of Religion's prudes, the Puritans. Mercutio or Truewit would not have been attracted by such an appellation, though it might operate forcibly on the saint-like organs of Ebenezer or Ananias.

Shakspeare, I believe, meant to describe an audience familiarized to excess of noise; and why should we suppose the Tribulation was not a puritanical meeting-house because it was noisy?

Enter the Lord Chamberlain.

CHAM. Mercy o'me, what a multitude are here! They grow still too, from all parts they are coming, As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters, These lazy knaves?—Ye have made a fine hand, fellows.

I can easily conceive that the turbulence of the most clamorous theatre, has been exceeded by the bellowings of puritanism against surplices and farthingales; and that our upper gallery, during Christmas week, is a sober consistory, compared with the vehemence of fanatick harangues against Bel and the Dragon, that idol Starch, the anti-christian Hierarchy, and the Whore of Babylon.

Neither do I see with what propriety the limbs of Limehouse could be called "young citizens," according to Mr. Malone's supposition. Were the inhabitants of this place (almost two miles distant from the capital) ever collectively entitled citizens? The phrase, dear brothers, is very plainly used to point out some fraternity of canters allied to the Tribulation both in pursuits and manners, by tempestuous zeal and consummate ignorance. STEEVENS.

1

in Limbo Patrum,] He means, in confinement. In limbo continues to be a cant phrase, in the same sense, at this day. MALONE.

The Limbus Patrum is, properly, the place where the old Fathers and Patriarchs are supposed to be waiting for the resurrection. See note on Titus Andronicus, Act III. sc. i. REED,

running banquet of two beadles,] A publick whipping.

JOHNSON.

This phrase, otherwise applied, has already occurred, p. 51: some of these

66

"Should find a running banquet ere they rested." A banquet, in ancient language, did not signify either dinner or supper, but the desert after each of them. So, in Thomas Newton's Herbal to the Bible, 8vo. 1587: " and are used to be served at the end of meales for a junket or banquetting dish, as sucket and other daintie conceits likewise are."

To the confinement, therefore, of these rioters, a whipping was to be the desert.

VOL. XV.

STEEVENS.

P

There's a trim rabble let in: Are all these

Your faithful friends o'the suburbs? We shall have Great store of room, no doubt, left for the ladies, When they pass back from the christening.

PORT. An't please your honour, We are but men; and what so many may do, Not being torn a pieces, we have done: An army cannot rule them.

CHAM.

3

As I live, If the king blame me for't, I'll lay ye all By the heels, and suddenly; and on your heads Clap round fines, for neglect: You are lazy knaves; And here ye lie baiting of bumbards, when Ye should do service. Hark, the trumpets sound; They are come already from the christening: Go, break among the press, and find a way out To let the troop pass fairly; or I'll find

A Marshalsea, shall hold you play these two months. PORT. Make way there for the princess.

MAN. You great fellow, stand close up, or I'll make your head ake.

PORT. You i'the camblet, get up o'the rail; I'll pick you o'er the pales else.

3

[Exeunt.

here ye lie baiting of bumbards,] A bumbard is an ale-barrel; to bait bumbards is to tipple, to lie at the spigot.

JOHNSON.

It appears from a passage already quoted in a note on The Tempest, Act II. sc. ii. out of Shirley's Martyr'd Soldier, 1638, that bumbards were the large vessels in which the beer was carried to soldiers upon duty. They resembled black jacks of leather. So, in Woman's a Weathercock, 1612: " She looks like a black bombard with a pint pot waiting upon it." STEEVENS.

get up o'the rail;] We must rather read-get up off the rail,—or,-get off the rail. M. MASON.

5

I'll pick you o'er the pales else.] To pick is to pitch. “To pick a dart," Cole renders, jaculor、 DICT. 1679. See a

SCENE IV.

The Palace."

Enter Trumpets, sounding; then two Aldermen, Lord Mayor, Garter, CRANMER, Duke of NORFOLK, with his Marshal's Staff, Duke of SUFFOLK, two Noblemen bearing great standingbowls for the christening gifts; then four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the Duchess of NORFOLK, godmother, bearing the child richly habited in a mantle, &c. Train borne by a Lady: then follows the Marchioness of DORSET, the other godmother, and Ladies. The Troop pass once about the stage, and Garter speaks.

8

GART. Heaven, from thy endless goodness, send prosperous life, long, and ever happy, to the high and mighty princess of England, Elizabeth!

note on Coriolanus, Act I. sc. i. where the word is, as I conceive, rightly spelt. Here the spelling in the old copy is peck.

MALONE.

to catch him

To pick and to pitch were anciently synonymous. So, in Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses, 1595, p. 138: " on the hip, and to picke him on his necké." Again, ibid: " to picke him on his nose," &c. STEEVENS.

The Palace.] At Greenwich, where, as we learn from Hall, fo. 217, this procession was made from the church of the Friars. REED.

standing-bowls-] i. e. bowls elevated on feet or pedestals. So, in Chapman's version of the 23d Iliad:

.8

a great new standing-bowl,

"To set downe both ways." STEEVENS.

Heaven, from thy endless goodness, &c.] These words are