“Amble (to Wellborn)--
Cannot you stay, to be serv’d among your fellows
From the basket, but you must press into the hall?”
The “basket” contained broken meat, which was placed in the porter’s lodge of great houses, to be distributed to the poor.
So, in the “Fatal Dowry,” Pontalier says to Liladum:--
“Go to the basket, and repent.”
It is with true feeling that Massinger put into the mouth of Wellborn these pleading lines:--
“Scorn me not, good lady!
But, as in form you are angelical,
Imitate the heavenly natures, and vouchsafe