[57] [Thornbacks.]
[58] Our poet alludes here to a passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. xii. vers. 7 and 8.
[59] Gold was formerly used in medicine, and many imaginary virtues ascribed to it.
[60] These suburb gardens and garden-houses are constantly mentioned by the writers of that age. An extract from Stubbs's "Anatomy of Abuses," 1585 (quoted by Mr Gifford in a note on "The Bondman"), will afford the reader some information: "In the suberbes of the citie, they [the women] have gardens either paled or walled round about very high, with their harbours and bowers fit for the purpose; and lest they might be espied in these open places, they have their banqueting houses, with galleries, turrets, and what not, therein sumptuously erected, wherein they may, and doubtless do, many of them, play the filthy persons."
ACT II., SCENE I.
Enter Host Boxall, Stephen, Jack, Dick, and Hugh.
Host. Welcome still, my merchants of bona Speranza; what's your traffic, bullies? What ware deal you in?—cards, dice, bowls, or pigeon-holes? Sort 'em yourselves: either passage, Novem, or mumchance?[61] Say, my brave bursemen, what's your recreation?
Steph. Dice, mine host. Is there no other room empty?
Host. Not a hole unstopped in my house but this, my thrifts.