_Dogberry's Losses or Leases._--_Much Ado about Nothing_, Act IV. Sc.
4.:
"_Dogberry._ A rich fellow enough, go to: and a fellow that hath
had losses; and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome
about him."
I can quite sympathise with the indignation of some of my cotemporaries
at the alteration by MR. PAYNE COLLIER'S mysterious corrector, of
"losses" into "leases." I am sorry to see a reading which we had
cherished without any misgiving as a bit of Shaksperian quaintness, and
consecrated by the humour of Gray and Charles Lamb, turned into a clumsy
misprint. But we must look at real probabilities, not at fancies and
predilections. I am afraid "leases" is the likelier word. It has also a
special fitness, which has not been hitherto remarked. Many of the
wealthy people of Elizabeth's reign, particularly in the middle class,
were "fellows that had had leases." It will be recollected that
extravagant leases or fines were among the methods by which the
possessions of the church were so grievously dilapidated in the age of
the Reformation. Those who had a little money to invest, could not do so
on more advantageous terms than by obtaining such leases as the
necessity or avarice of clerical and other corporations induced them to
grant; and the coincident fall in the value of money increased the gain
of the lessees, and loss of the corporations, to an extraordinary
amount. Throughout Elizabeth's reign parliament was at work in
restraining this abuse, by the well-known "disabling acts," restricting
the power of bishops and corporations to lease their property. The last
was passed, I think, only in 1601. And therefore a "rich fellow" of
Dogberry's class was described, to the thorough comprehension and
enjoyment of an audience of that day, as one who "had _had_ leases."