finds four out of the five are wind-shaken, but the
fifth is an oak that can bear the hewing. "Bonds are sealed, commodities
delivered, and the tumbler fetches his second career; and their credit
having obtained the purse-nets, the wares must now obtain money." The
_tumbler_ now hunts for the _rabbit suckers_, those who buy these
_purse-nets_; but the _rabbit-suckers_ seem greater devils than the
_ferrets_, for they always bid under; and after many exclamations the
_warren_ is glad that the seller should repurchase his own commodities
for ready money, at thirty or fifty _per cent._ under the cost. The
story does not finish till we come to the manner "How the warren is
spoiled." I shall transcribe this part of the narrative in the lively
style of this town writer. "While there is any grass to nibble upon, the
rabbits are there; but on the cold day of repayment they retire into
their caves; so that when the _ferret_ makes account of _five_ in chase,
four disappear. Then he grows fierce, and tears open his own jaws to
suck blood from him that is left. Serjeants, marshalmen, and bailiffs
are sent forth, who lie scenting at every corner, and with terrible paws
haunt every walk. The bird is seized upon by these hawks, his estate
looked into, his wings broken, his lands made over to a stranger. He
pays L500, who never had but L60, or to prison; or he seals any bond,
mortgages any lordship, does anything, yields anything. A little way in,
he cares not how far he wades; the greater his possessions are, the
apter he is to take up and to be trusted--thus gentlemen are _ferretted_
and undone!" It is evident that the whole system turns on the single
novice; those who join him in his bonds are stalking horses; the whole
was to begin and to end with the single individual, the great coney of
the warren. Such was the nature of those "commodities" to which
Massinger and Shakspeare allude, and which the modern dramatist may
exhibit in his comedy, and be still sketching after life.

Another scene, closely connected with the present, will complete the
picture. "The Ordinaries" of those days were the lounging places of the
men of the town, and the "fantastic gallants," who herded together.[75]
Ordinaries were the "exchange for news," the echoing places for all
sorts of town-talk: there they might hear of the last new play and poem,
and the last fresh widow, who was sighing for some knight to make her a
lady; these resorts were attended also