would not bate an inch (not _Bolton's ace_)
To baite, deride, nay, ride this silly asse."

J. CT.

["_Bate me an ace quoth Bolton_" is an old proverb of unknown origin.
Ray tells us that a _Collection of Proverbs_ having been presented to
Queen Elizabeth, with an assurance that it contained all the proverbs
in the English language. "Bate me an ace, quoth Bolton," said the
queen, implying that the assertion was too strong; and, in fact, that
every proverb was not in the collection. See Nares' _Glossary_, who
quotes the following epigram by H.P., to show the collection referred
to

"_Secundae Cogitutiones meliores._

"A pamphlet was of proverbs penned by Polton,
Wherein he thought all sorts included were;
Untill one told him _Bate m' an ace quoth Bolton_,
'Indeed,' said he, 'that proverb is not there.'"]

_Hopkins the Witchfinder_ (Vol. ii., p. 392.).--If the inquiry of CLERICUS
relates to Mathew Hopkins the witchfinder general, my friend W.S. Fitch of
Ipswich has some manuscript account of his residence in that town, as a
lawyer of but little {414} note, and his removal to Manningtree, in Essex;
but whether it gives any further particulars of him I am unable to state,
as I have not seen the manuscript.

J. CLARKE.

_Sir Richard Steel_ (Vol. ii., p.375.).--The death and burial-place of Sir
Richard Steel is thus noticed in Cibber's _Lives of the Poets_, vol. iv.
p.120.:--

"Some years before his death he grew paralytic, and retired to his seat
at Langunnor, near Caermarthen, in Wales, where he died, September 1st,
1729, and was privately interred, according to his own desire, in the
church of Caermarthen."

J.V.R.W.

_Ale-draper_ (Vol. ii., p.310.).--A common designation for an ale-house
keeper in the sixteenth century. Henry Chettle, in his very curious little
publication, _Kind-Harts Dreame_, 1592 (edited for the Percy Society by
your humble servant), has the following passage:

"I came up to London, and fall to be some tapster, hostler, or
chamberlaine in an inn. Well, I get mee a wife; with her a little
money; when we are married, seeke a house we must; no other occupation
have I but to be an _ale-draper_." (P. 37. of reprint.)

Again, in the same tract, the author speaks of "two milch maydens that had
set up a shoppe of "_ale-drapery_."

In the _Discoverie of the Knights of the Poste_, 1597, is another notice of
the