[Knights would be a bold emendation, and perhaps not very successful.]
[366] "Passage is a game at dice to be played at but by two, and it is performed with three dice. The caster throws continually till he hath thrown dubblets under ten, and then he is out and loseth; or dubblets above ten, and then he passeth and wins."—Compleat Gamester, 1680, p. 119.
[367] A play called "Long Meg of Westminster," according to Henslowe, was performed at Newington by the Lord Admiral's and Lord Chamberlain's men, the 14th February 1594; and a ballad on the same subject was entered on the Stationers' books in the same year. Meg of Westminster is mentioned in "The Roaring Girl."—Gilchrist.
The play of "Long Meg" is mentioned in Field's "Amends for Ladies," 1618, with another called "The Ship," as being played at the Fortune theatre. Feesimple says, "Faith, I have a great mind to see 'Long Meg' and 'The Ship' at the Fortune," which would seem to show in opposition to Mr Malone's opinion (see Malone's Shakespeare by Boswell, iii. 304), that more than one piece was played on the same occasion. Long Meg of Westminster's "pranks" were detailed in a tract published in [1582], and reprinted in the "Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana." The introduction contains some further notices of this conspicuous damsel.—Collier.
[368] Perhaps this was the title of some play or ballad that was very successful, though it is not easy to explain the allusion. Dekker, in his "If it be not good, the Devil is in it," seems to refer to the same piece to nearly the same purpose. Scumbroth observes, "No, no, if fortune favoured me, I should be full; but fortune favours nobody but garlick, nor garlick neither now, yet she hath strong reason to love it; for though garlick made her smell abominably in the nostrils of the gallants, yet she had smelt and stunk worse but for garlick." It may be, that such a play was produced at the Fortune theatre, and met with general approbation.
This conjecture is supported by the following passage from "The World's Folly; or, A Warning-Peece Discharged upon the Wickedness thereof," by I. H., 1615: "I will not particularize those blitea dramata, (as Laberius tearmes another sort), those Fortune-fatted fooles and Times Ideots, whose garbe is the Tootheache of witte, the Plague-sore of Judgement, the Common-sewer of Obscœnities, and the very Traine-powder that dischargeth the roaring Meg (not Mol) of all scurrile villainies upon the Cities face; who are faine to produce blinde * Impudence ['Garlicke' inserted in the margin, against the asterisk] to personate himselfe upon their stage, behung with chaynes of garlicke, as an antidote against their owne infectious breaths, lest it should kill their Oyster-crying Audience."—Collier.
[369] [So in old copy, but query, addle-headed.]
[370] This was one of the cries of London at the time: "Buy my rope of onions—white Sir Thomas's onions." It was also liable to the hypercriticism of the player. What St Thomas had to do with onions does not appear; but the saint here meant was perhaps St Thomas of Trunnions—
"Nay, softe, my maisters, by Saincte Thomas of Trunions,
I am not disposed to buy of your onions."
—"Apius and Virginia," 1575, sig. E 2. These lines are spoken by Haphazard, the Vice, and are used as if the expression were proverbial.