Whereof the crown's to have a moiety,

If it be owner; else the crown and owners
To share that moiety, and the recoverers
To enjoy the t'other moiety for their charge.
Eng. Thoroughout England?

seasonably ridiculed by the poet. 'Tis probable, that a design of draining the fens was then talked of: and experience has since shewn, that the project was not wholly impracticable. WHAL. Thus Randolph :

"I have a rare device to set Dutch windmills
Upon Newmarket Heath and Salisbury Plain,
To drain the fens !" Muses' Looking-glass.

But this was, as Whalley says, the age of projectors; and it is to the praise of the dramatic poets, that they spared no efforts to guard the public against them. Had not the scandalous rapacity of the courtiers found an interest in encouraging those daring depredators on the weak and wealthy, the united force of wit and satire must have driven them out of countenance. Our poet, who never loses sight of verisimilitude, is somewhat modest in his catalogue of projects; but his contemporaries wanton in their exposure of those pernicious follies. The Court Beggar of Brome is solely directed against them; and in that extraordinary drama, The Antipodes, they are attacked with no inconsiderable degree of humour. One example may be given: its pleasantry must apologize for its length.

"As for your project
For putting down the infinite use of jacks,
Whereby the education of young children
In turning spits, is greatly hindered,

It may be look'd into; and so may yours,
Against the multiplicity of watches,
Whereby much neighbourly familiarity,
By asking "What d'ye guess it is o'clock ?"
Is lost, when every puny clerk can carry
The time o' the day in's breeches. For the rest;
This, for the increase of wool; that is to say,
By flaying of live horses, and new-covering them
With sheepskins, I do like exceedingly:
And this, for keeping of tame owls in cities,
To kill up rats and mice, whereby all cats
May be destroyed, as an especial means
To stop the growth of witchcraft." A. iv. S. 1.

Meer. Yes, which will arise

To eighteen millions, seven the first year:
I have computed all, and made my survey
Unto my acre: I'll begin at the pan,

9

Not at the skirts; as some have done, and lost
All that they wrought, their timber-work, their trench,
Their banks, all borne away, or else fill'd up,

By the next winter. Tut, they never went
The way I'll have it all.

Eng. A gallant tract

Of land it is!

Meer. 'Twill yield a pound an acre :

We must let cheap ever at first. But, sir,

This looks too large for

you, I see. Come hither, We'll have a less. Here's a plain fellow, [points to TRAINS] you see him,

Has his black bag of papers there, in buckram,
Will not be sold for the earldom of Pancridge: draw,

9

I'll begin at the pan,

Not at the skirts; as some have done, and lost

All that they wrought, &c.] Pan is not easily distinguished from skirt. Both words seem to refer to the outer parts, or extremities. Perhaps Meercraft means- -on a broader scale, on a more extended front. The remainder of the speech apparently alludes to some well-known disaster of the time. Many schemes were set on foot about this period, not only for draining the fens of Lincolnshire, but for gaining land from the sea in various places; of these not a few failed; but the attempts were not wholly lost to the community, since they taught later adventurers to avoid the errors of the original projectors.

The boldness of the plans for draining the fens, seems to have startled the public more than all the others exhibited to their consideration: hence the perpetual allusions to it in our old dramatists. One has just been mentioned; another is now before me:

"Our projector

Will undertake the making of bay-salt,
For a penny a bushel, to serve all the state;
Another dreames of building water-workes,

Drying of fennes and marshes, like the Dutchmen."

Holland's Leaguer, A. i. S. 5.

Give me out one by chance. [TRAINS gives him a paper out of the bag.] "Project four: Dogs'

skins."

Twelve thousand pound! the very worst at first.
Fitz. Pray you let's see it, sir.

Meer. 'Tis a toy, a trifle!

Fitz. Trifle! twelve thousand pound for dogs' skins?

Meer. Yes,

But, by my way of dressing, you must know, sir,
And med'cining the leather to a height

Of improved ware, like

your borachio

Of Spain,' sir, I can fetch nine thousand for't-
Eng. Of the king's glover?

Meer. Yes; how heard you that?

Eng. Sir, I do know you can.

Meer. Within this hour;

And reserve half my secret.

Pluck another;

See if thou hast a happier hand; [TRAINS draws out another.] I thought so.

The very next worse to it!" Bottle-ale."

Yet this is two and twenty thousand. Prithee
Pull out another, two or three.

Fitz. Good; stay, friend

By bottle-ale two and twenty thousand pound? Meer. Yes, sir, it's cast to penny-halfpenny farthing.

On the back-side, there you may see it, read,
I will not bate a Harrington of the sum.2

Of Spain.] "Borachio (says Minshieu) is a bottle commonly of a pigges skin, with the hair inward, dressed inwardly with rozen, to keep wine or liquor sweet: "-Wines preserved in these bottles contract a peculiar flavour, and are then said to taste of the borachio.

2 I will not bate a Harrington of the sum.] In 1613, a patent was granted to John Stanhope, lord Harrington, Treasurer of the Chambers, for the coinage of royal farthing tokens, of which he

I'll win it in my water, and my malt,
My furnaces, and hanging of my coppers,

seems to have availed himself with sufficient liberality. Some clamour was excited on the occasion; but it speedily subsided; for the Star Chamber kept a watchful eye on the first symptoms of discontent at these pernicious indulgences. "Now" (says the author of the first fourteen years of king James) "my lord Harrington obtained a patent of his majesty for the making of brasse farthings, a thing that brought with it some contempt, though lawful, for all things lawful are not expedient, who being enjoined to go into the Low-countries with her Grace" (the princess Elizabeth, married to the Palsgrave) "by the way lost his life." From this nobleman they took the name of Harringtons in common conversation; thus sir Henry Wotton: "I have lost four or five friends, and not gotten the value of one Harrington." Letters, p. 558. Several of these little pieces were in the hands of Mr. Waldron, and Whalley caused one of them to be engraved; this I have copied, though it is too common, I suspect, to be an object either of interest or curiosity.

In that amusing collection of anecdotes, &c., the Oxoniana, there is a singular error respecting this word, which occurs in Drunken Barnaby's Journal:

From this

"Veni Harrington, bonum omen!

Vere amans illud nomen;
Harringtoni dedi nummum,
Et fortuna penè summum,
Indigenti postulanti

Benedictionem danti."

"Thence to Harrington, be it spoken,
For name's sake, I gave a token

To a beggar that did crave it

And as cheerfully receive it.

More he need not me impórtune,

For, 'twas the utmost of my fortune."

passage, the surname of Harrington has been absurdly given to Barnaby-"though it must be observed," (the_collector says) that in the Latin there is little if any proof of Barnaby's

66

The tonning, and the subtlety of my yest;
And, then the earth of my bottles, which I dig,
Turn up, and steep, and work, and neal, myself,
To a degree of porcelane. You will wonder
At my proportions, what I will put up
In seven years! for so long time I ask
For my invention. I will save in cork,

In my mere stop'ling, above three thousand pound,
Within that term; by googing of them out
Just to the size of my bottles, and not slicing :
There's infinite loss in that. [TRAINS draws out
another.] What hast thou there?

O!" Making wine of raisins:" this is in hand now. Eng. Is not that strange, sir, to make wine of raisins ? 3

Meer. Yes, and as true a wine as the wines of France,

Or Spain, or Italy: look of what grape

My raisin is, that wine I'll render perfect,

As of the Muscatel grape, I'll render Muscatel;

Of the Canary, his; the Claret, his;

So of all kinds and bate you of the prices
Of wine throughout the kingdom half in half.

Eng. But how, sir, if you raise the other commodity, Raisins?

Meer. Why, then I'll make it out of blackberries,

surname being Harrington, but only in the English translation." vol. ii. p. 57. In fact, there is no proof of it in either language. Barnaby simply means to say, that when he reached Harrington, he had in his pocket the token or farthing piece of that name, which he looked on as a fortunate circumstance. This Harrington he bestowed in charity; and, as it was the whole of his stock, the act may be placed as a small set-off against some of his drunken frolics.

3 Is not that strange, sir, to make wine of raisins?] Whatever it might be in Fitzdottrel's days, it is sufficiently familiar in ours. The late Mr. Beaufoy would have outgone Meercraft in his own way; and his successors are thought to have improved even upon his ingenuity.