great consumption of wood (as fuel
for smelting the ore) would follow--is specially put forward by the
dramatist. The mention in Alfred's speech of a scheme for glassmaking
seems also to suggest 1613 as the date of authorship; for on 17th
November of that year Sir Jerome Bowes and Sir Edward Zouch procured
patents for making glass.[160]

There are other allusions that point to 1613. In II. 4, we find--"Make
us for want coyn brasse and passe it current." The first patent for the
coining of brass farthing-tokens was granted on 10th April, 1613, to
John Stanhope, Lord Harrington; and the grant caused general
dissatisfaction.[161] Again: in the same scene there is a reference to
the exportation of broad cloth:--"I, an't please your honour, have a
commoditie of good broad cloth, not past two hundred; may I shippe them
over? and theres a hundred poundes." When we turn to the State Papers we
discover that numerous complaints were made in 1613 about the
exportation of undressed broadcloth. On 3rd March, 1612-13, the King
forwarded to the Lords of the Council a petition from the clothworkers
and dyers that the statutes against the exportation of undressed and
undyed goods should be strictly enforced. I am inclined to think that
these passages, taken collectively, afford strong proof that _The
Costlie Whore_ was written in 1613--twenty years before the date of
publication.

In I. 2, we have the story of Bishop Hatto and the Rats told briefly but
effectively. Mr. Baring-Gould in his _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_
has investigated the sources of the legend with much fulness. He refers
us specially to Wolfius's _Lect. Memorab_., Lavingae, 1600, tom. i. p.
343. From the Stationers' Registers it appears that a ballad of _The
Wrathfull Judgement of God upon Bishop Hatto_ was licensed to H. Carre
on 15th August, 1586. The dramatist has invested the story with the
glamour of that poetical strangeness which is the very salt of such
narrations:--

"_Alf_. He did proclaime reliefe unto the poore;
Assembled them unto a private Barne,
And, having lockt the doore, set it on fire,
Saying hee'de rid the countrie of such Mice:
And Mice and Rats have rid him from the World.

* * * * *

_Duke_. Could not this palace, seated in the _Rheine_
In midst of the great River, (to the which
No bridge, nor convay, other then by boats
Was to be had) free him from vermine Rats?