266) says that they were persons
prodigall and of great expence, who having runne themselves
into debt, were constrained to run into
factions
to defend themselves
from danger of the law.
Ben Jonson - The Devil's Association
404: you shewed a neglect Un-to-be-pardon'd.'
=3. 3. 62 Master of the Dependances!= See Introduction.
pp. lvi, lvii.
=3. 3. 69 the roaring manner.= Gifford defines it as the 'language
of bullies affecting a quarrel' (_Wks._ 4. 483). The 'Roaring Boy'
continued under various designations to infest the streets of London
from the reign of Elizabeth until the beginning of the eighteenth
century. Spark (Somer's _Tracts_ 2.
266) says that they were persons
prodigall and of great expence, who having runne themselves
into debt, were constrained to run into
factions
to defend themselves
from danger of the law.
' He adds that divers of the nobility
afforded them maintenance, in return for which 'they entered into
many desperate enterprises.'
Arthur Wilson (_Life of King James I._, p. 28), writing of the
disorderly state of the city in 1604, says: 'Divers _Sects_ of
_vitious Persons_ going under the Title of _Roaring Boyes_,
_Bravadoes_, _Roysters_, &c. commit many insolences; the Streets
swarm night and day with bloody quarrels, private _Duels_
fomented,' etc.
Kastril, the 'angry boy' in the _Alchemist_, and Val Cutting and
Knockem in _Bartholomew Fair_ are roarers, and we hear of them
under the title of 'terrible boys' in the _Silent Woman_
(_Wks._ 3. 349). Cf. also Sir Thomas Overbury's _Character of a
Roaring Boy_ (ed. Morley, p. 72): 'He sleeps with a tobacco-pipe
in his mouth; and his first prayer in the morning is he may
remember whom he fell out with over night.'
