(Vol. vii., p. 557.)
Additional evidence of the fact that lawyers used to carry _green_ bags
towards the end of the {60} seventeenth century, is to be found in the
_Plain Dealer_, a comedy by Wycherley.
One of the principal characters in the play is the Widow Blackacre, a
petulant, litigious woman, always in law, and mother of Jerry Blackacre, "a
true raw squire under age and his mother's government, _bred to the law_."
In Act I. Sc. 1., I find the following stage directions:
"Enter Widow Blackacre with a mantle and a _green_ bag, and several
papers in the other hand. Jerry Blackacre, her son, in a gown, laden
with _green_ bags, following her."
In Act III. Sc. 1. the widow is called impertinent and ignorant by a lawyer
of whom she demands back her fee, on his returning her brief and declining
to plead for her. This draws from her the following reply:
"Impertinent again and ignorant to me! Gadsbodikins, you puny upstart
in the law to use me so, you _green bag_ carrier, you murderer of
unfortunate causes," &c.
Farther on, in the same scene, Freeman, a gentleman well educated, but of a
broken fortune, a complier with the age, thus admonishes Jerry:
"Come, Squire, let your mother and your trees fall as she pleases,
rather than wear this gown and carry _green_ bags all thy life, and be
pointed at for a tony. But you shall be able to deal with her yet the
common way. Thou shalt make false love to some lawyer's daughter, whose
father, upon the hopes of thy marrying her, shall lend thee money and
law to preserve thy estate and trees."