_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 same occupation:
"So that now hee hath left brokery, and is become a draper. A draper,
quoth Freeman, what draper--of woollin or linnen? No, qd. he, an
_ale-draper_, wherein he hath more skil then in the other."
Probably these instances of the use of the term may be sufficient for your
correspondent.