Part i

. c. ii. 367.

With a quotation from a play called _The Feigned Astrologer_, 1668, I conclude this notice of Mary Frith;

“We cannot do that neither in quiet, So many have found his lodging out: And now, _Moll Cut-purse_, that oracle of felonie Is dead, there’s not a pocket pickt, But hee’s acquainted with it.” Act iv. sc. 2, p. 62.

Thomas Dekker, whose name is coupled with Middleton’s on the title-page of _The Roaring Girl_, was (as perhaps few readers require to be told) a very prolific and popular dramatist: many of his plays have perished.

TO THE COMIC PLAY-READERS, VENERY AND LAUGHTER.

The fashion of play-making I can properly compare to nothing so naturally as the alteration in apparel; for in the time of the great crop-doublet, your huge bombasted plays, quilted with mighty words to lean purpose, were[947] only then in fashion: and as the doublet fell, neater inventions began to set up. Now, in the time of spruceness, our plays follow the niceness of our garments; single plots, quaint conceits, lecherous jests, drest up in hanging sleeves: and those are fit for the times and the termers.[948] Such a kind of light-colour summer stuff, mingled with divers colours, you shall find this published comedy; good to keep you in an afternoon from dice at home in your chambers: and for venery, you shall find enough for sixpence,[949] but well couched and[950] you mark it; for Venus, being a woman, passes through the play in doublet and breeches; a brave disguise and a safe one, if the statute untie not her codpiece point. The