Ale-draper

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*."…