s, perhaps, _seriously_, that in _gaming_
language, from I know not what practice, to _tye_ is to _equal_! A sense
of the word, as far as I have yet found, _unknown_ to our old Writers;
and, if _known_, would not surely have been used in _this_ place by our
Author.

But let us turn from conjecture to Shakespeare's authorities. Hall, from
whom the above description is copied by Holingshed, is very explicit in
the demands of the Cardinal: who, having insolently told the Lord Mayor
and Aldermen, "For sothe I thinke that _halfe_ your substaunce were to
litle," assures them by way of comfort at the end of his harangue, that
_upon an average_ the _tythe_ should be sufficient; "Sers, speake not to
breake that thyng that is concluded, for _some_ shal not paie the _tenth_
parte, and _some_ more."--And again; "Thei saied, the Cardinall by
Visitacions, makyng of Abbottes, probates of testamentes, graunting of
faculties, licences, and other pollyngs in his Courtes legantines, had
made his _threasore egall with the kynges_." Edit. 1548. p. 138. and 143.

Skelton, in his _Why come ye not to Court_, gives us, after his rambling
manner, a curious character of Wolsey:

----By and by
He will drynke us so dry
And sucke us so nye
That men shall scantly
Haue penny or halpennye
God saue hys noble grace
And graunt him a place
Endlesse to dwel
With the deuill of hel
For and he were there
We nead neuer feare
Of the feendes blacke
For I undertake
He wold so brag and crake
That he wold than make
The deuils to quake
To shudder and to shake
Lyke a fier drake
And with a cole rake
Bruse them on a brake
And binde them to a stake
And set hel on fyre
At his own desire
He is such a grym syre!--Edit. 1568.

Mr. Upton and some other Criticks have thought it very _scholar-like_ in
Hamlet to swear the Centinels on a _Sword_: but this is for ever met with.
For instance, in the _Passus primus_ of _Pierce Plowman_,

Dauid in his daies dubbed knightes,
And did hem _swere on her sword_ to serue truth euer.

And in _Hieronymo_, the common Butt of our Author, and the Wits of the
time, says Lorenzo to Pedringano,

Swear on this cross, that what thou sayst is true--
But if I prove thee perjured and unjust,
This very _sword_, whereon thou took'st thine oath,
Shall be the worker of thy Tragedy!

We have therefo