Does not the action of this extract from Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside help most in depicting the greed and dishonesty of Yellowhammer, as well as the humor and ingenuity of the suitor?
Touchwood junior. (Aside.) ’Twere a good mirth now to set him a-work
To make her wedding-ring; I must about it:
Rather than the gain should fall to a stranger,
’Twas honesty in me t’ enrich my father.
Yellowhammer. (Aside.) The girl is wondrous peevish. I fear nothing
But that she’s taken with some other love,
Then all’s quite dashed: that must be narrowly looked to;
We cannot be too wary in our children.—
What is’t you lack?