Mr. Steevens has justly observed that the term merchant was anciently used in contradistinction to gentleman. Whetstone, in his Mirour for majestrates of cyties, 1584, 4to, speaking of the usurious practices of the citizens of London who attended the gaming-houses for the purpose of supplying the gentlemen players with money, has the following remark: "The extremity of these men's dealings hath beene and is so cruell as there is a natural malice generally impressed in the hearts of the gentlemen of England towards the citizens of London, insomuch as if they odiously name a man, they foorthwith call him, a trimme merchaunt. In like despight the citizen calleth every rascall a joly gentleman. And truly this mortall envie betweene these two woorthie estates, was first engendred of the cruell usage of covetous merchaunts in hard bargaines gotten of gentlemen, and nourished with malitious words and revenges taken of both parties."
With respect to ropery,—the word seems to have been deemed unworthy of a place in our early dictionaries, and was probably coined in the mint of the slang or canting crew. It savours strongly of the halter, and appears to have signified a low kind of knavish waggery. From some other words of similar import, it may derive illustration. Thus a rope-rype is defined in Hulæt's Abcedarium to be "an ungracious waghalter, nequam;" and in Minsheu's dictionary, "one ripe for a rope, or for whom the gallowes grones." A roper has nearly the same definition in the English vocabulary at the end of Thomasii Dictionarium, 1615, 4to; but the word occasionally denoted a crafty fellow, or one who would practise a fraud against another (for which he might deserve hanging). So in the book of blasing of arms or coat armour, ascribed to Dame Juliana Bernes, the author says, "which crosse I saw but late in tharmes of a noble man: the whiche in very dede was somtyme a crafty man, a roper, as he himself sayd," sig. Aij. b. Roper had also another sense, which, though rather foreign to the present purpose, is so quaintly expressed in one of our old dictionaries, that the insertion of it will doubtless be excused:—"Roper, restio, is he that loketh in at John Roper's window by translation, he that hangeth himselfe."—Hulæt's Abcedarium Anglico-Latinum, 1552, folio. Rope-tricks, elsewhere used by Shakspeare, belongs also to this family.
Scene 4. Page 431.
Nurse. I am none of his skains-mates.
This has been explained cut-throat companions, and frequenters of the fencing school, from skein, a knife or dagger. The objection to this interpretation is, that the nurse could not very well compare herself with characters which it is presumed would scarcely be found among females of any description. One commentator thinks that she uses skains-mates for kins-mates, and ropery for roguery; but the latter words have been already shown to be synonymous, and the existence of such a term as kins-mate may be questioned. Besides, the nurse blunders only in the use of less obvious words.
The following conjecture is therefore offered, but not with entire confidence in its propriety. It will be recollected that there are skains of thread; so that the good nurse may perhaps mean nothing more than sempstresses, a word not always used in the most honourable acceptation. She had before stated that she was "none of his flirt-gills."
ACT III.
Scene 1. Page 452.
Rom. O! I am fortune's fool!
"I am always running in the way of evil fortune, like the fool in the play," says Dr. Johnson. There is certainly no allusion to any play. See the note in p. [146].