[27] i.e., The reply of drawers when they are called.
[28] [See "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," ii. 247-8.]
[29] It was formerly usual to celebrate Christmas, at the several inns of court, with extraordinary festivity. Sometimes plays or masques were performed; and when these were omitted, a greater degree of licence appears to have been allowed to the students than at other times. In societies where so many young men, possessed of high spirits, and abounding with superfluous sums of money, were assembled, it will not seem wonderful to find the liberty granted at this season should be productive of many irregularities. Among others, gaming, in the reign of James I., when this play was probably written, had been carried to such an extravagant height as to demand the interposition of the heads of some of the societies to prevent the evil consequences attending it. In the 12th of James I. orders for reformation and better government of the inns of court and Chancery were made by the readers and benchers of the four houses of court; among which is the following:—"For that disorders in the Christmas-time, may both infect the minds, and prejudice the estates and fortunes, of the young gentlemen in the same societies: it is therefore ordered, that there shall be commons of the house kept, in every house of court, during the Christmas; and that none shall play in their several halls at the dice, except he be a gentleman of the same society, and in commons; and the benefits of the boxes to go to the butlers of every house respectively."—Dugdale's "Orig. Jurid.," p. 318. In the 4th of Car. I. (Nov. 17) the society of Gray's Inn direct, "that all playing at dice, cards, or otherwise, in the hall, buttry, or butler's chamber, should be thenceforth barred and forbidden, at all times of the year, the twenty days in Christmas only excepted."—Ibid. p. 286. And in the 7th of Car. I. (7th Nov.) the society of the Inner Temple made several regulations for keeping good rule in Christmas-time, two of which will show how much gaming had been practised there before that time. "8. That there shall not be any knocking with boxes, or calling aloud for gamesters. 9. That no play be continued within the house upon any Saturday night, or upon Christmas-eve at night, after twelve of the clock."
Sir Simon D'Ewes also, in the MS. life of himself in the British Museum, takes notice of the Christmas irregularities about this period (p. 52, Dec. 1620)—"At the saied Temple was a lieutenant chosen, and much gaming, and other excesses increased during these festivall dayes, by his residing and keeping a standing table ther; and, when sometimes I turned in thither to behold ther sportes, and saw the many oaths, execrations, and quarrels, that accompanied ther dicing, I began seriously to loath it, though at the time I conceived the sporte of itselfe to bee lawfull."—["Life of D'Ewes," edit. 1845, i. 161.] "The first day of Januarie [i.e., 1622-23] at night, I came into commons at the Temple, wheere ther was a lieftenant choosen, and all manner of gaming and vanitie practiced, as if the church had not at all groaned under those heavie desolations which it did. Wherefore I was verie gladd, when, on the Tuesday following, being the seventh day of the same moneth, the howse broake upp ther Christmas, and added an end to those excesses."—[Life, ut supr., i. 223.]
To what excess gaming was carried on in the inns-of-court at this period may be judged from the following circumstance, that in taking up the floor of one of the Temple halls about 1764, near one hundred pair of dice were found, which had dropt at times through the chinks or joints of the boards. They were very small, scarce more than two-thirds as large as our modern ones. The hall was built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. [See on this subject "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," i., where copious collections will be found upon this subject.]
[30] This tavern, with the same sign as above described, [existed till 1787. See Gifford's Ben Jonson, 1816, ix. 84-5.]
[31] This question is improperly given to Sim in the 4o.—Collier.
[32] [See Dyce's Middleton, iii. 97, and v. 208.]
[33] [A line of an old song altered.]
[34] This is the reading of the quarto, but Mr Reed, without necessity or notice, changed it thus—