[248] [The christening-fee.] The chrysome was the white cloth thrown over the new-baptized child. This perhaps was the perquisite of the officiating clergyman. The child itself, however, was sometimes called a chrysome. See a note on "King Henry V.," vi., 52, edit. 1778.—Steevens.
[249] i.e., Leopards, animals often introduced into heraldic devices.
[250] [Former edit., vocation.]
[251] [Run into debt. Scores used to be chalked up at taverns. Hence the proverb, "The tapster is undone by chalk!" From being a particular phrase, it became general.]
[252] [The allowance to a kept mistress.]
[253] A biggon was a kind of coif formerly worn by men. It is now only in use for children.
[254] [Granting infant to be the right word, we are perhaps to suppose that illegitimate children were surreptitiously deposited on mercers' counters, occasionally, wrapped up as parcels. Upon their strengths appears to mean upon their credit.]
[255] From Dugdale's "Origines Juridiciales," p. 207, &c., we learn that the office of a Reader at the Middle Temple was held at a great charge to the person who executed it. "His expences," says that author, "during this time of reading, are very great; insomuch, as some have spent above six hundred pounds in two dayes less than a fortnight, which now is the usual time of reading." It appears also that many gentlemen, who were put by their reading, were removed from the Bar-table unto a table called, The Auncients Table; "And it is no disgrace," says the same author, "for any man to be removed hither; for by reason of the excessive chardge of readings, many men of great learning and competent practise, as well as others of less learning, but great estates, have refused to Read, and are here placed." To relieve the gentlemen who undertook this expensive office, it seems to have been usual to call upon the students for their assistance; and this circumstance is alluded to in the text. [The Ancients' Table is the same as the Benchers', and at Gray's Inn the Benchers are still called Ancients.]