PLU. But what new shapes are those upon thy head?

BEL. These are the ancient arms of cuckoldry, And these my dame hath kindly left to me; For which Belphegor shall be here derided, Unless your great infernal majesty Do solemnly proclaim, no devil shall scorn Hereafter still to wear the goodly horn.

PLU. This for thy service I will grant thee freely: All devils shall, as thou dost, like horns wear, And none shall scorn Belphegor's arms to bear. And now, Malbecco, hear thy latest doom. Since that thy first reports are justified By after-proofs, and women's looseness known, One plague more will I send upon the earth! Thou shalt assume a light and fiery shape, And so for ever live within the world; Dive into women's thoughts, into men's hearts; Raise up false rumours and suspicious fears; Put strange inventions into each man's mind; And for these actions they shall always call thee By no name else but fearful Jealousy. Go, Jealousy, begone; thou hast thy charge; Go, range about the world that is so large. And now, for joy Belphegor is return'd, The furies shall their tortures cast away, And all hell o'er we'll make it holiday.

[It thundereth and lightneth. Exeunt omnes.

FINIS.



FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cooper's "Athenae Cantabrig," ii. 306.

[2] Nash seems to have boasted of his birth earlier than the date of his "Lenten Stuff," for G. Harvey, in his "Four Letters," &c., 1592, says: "I have enquired what speciall cause the pennyless gentleman hath to brag of his birth, which giveth the woeful poverty good leave, even with his Stentor's voice, and in his rattling terms, to revive the pitiful history of Lazarillo de Thormes."

[3] Not of Hertfordshire, a mistake originally made by Shiel in his "Lives of the Poets," thence copied into Berkenhout's "Biographia Literaria," and subsequently into the last edition of the "Biographia Dramatica." [It is copied also by the editor of a reprint of Nash and Marlowe's "Dido," 1825.]

[4] Sig. Q 4.

[5] "For coming from Venice the last summer, and taking Bergamo in my way homeward to England, it was my hap, sojourning there some four or five days, to light in fellowship with that famous Francattip Harlequin, who, perceiving me to be an Englishman by my habit and speech, asked me many particulars of the order and manner of our plays, which he termed by the name of representations. Amongst other talk he enquired of me if I knew any such Parabolano here in London as Signior Chiarlatano Kempino. 'Very well,' quoth I, 'and have been often in his company.' He hearing me say so began to embrace me anew, and offered me all the courtesy he could for his sake, saying although he knew him not, yet for the report he had heard of his pleasance, he could not but be in love with his perfections being absent."

Many of Nash's works furnish evidence that he was well acquainted with Italian poets and writers. Some allusions and translations are pointed out in the notes to the present reprint of "Summer's Last Will and Testament."

[6] It is called "A counter-cuff to Martin junior," &c.

[7] It may be doubted whether Greene and Nash did not contribute to bring the occupation of a ropemaker into discredit. Marston, in his "Parasitaster," printed in 1606, for some reason or other, speaks of it in terms of great contempt.

"Then must you sit there thrust and contemned, bareheaded to a grogram scribe, ready to start up at the door creaking, prest to get in, with your leave sir, to some surly groom, the third son of a ropemaker."

[8] There is a MS. poem in the Brit. Mus. (Bibl. Sloan. 1489) entitled "The Trimming of Tom Nash," written in metre-ballad verse, but it does not relate to our author, though written probably not very long after 1600, and though the title is evidently borrowed from the tract by Gabriel Harvey. Near the opening it contains some notices of romances and works of the time, which may be worth quoting—

"And he as many authors read As ere Don Quixote had. And some of them could say by heart To make the hearers glad.

"The valiant deeds of Knight o'th' Sun And Rosicleer so tall; And Palmerin of England too And Amadis of Gaul.

"Bevis of Hampton he had read And Guy of Warwick stout; Huon of Bordeaux, though so long, Yet he had read him out.

"The Hundred Tales and Scoggin's Jests And Arthur of the Round Table, The twelve Wise men of Gotham too And Ballads innumerable."

[9] It is unnecessary to quote the passage, as the whole tract is reprinted both in the old and new editions of the "Harleian Miscellany." In his "Almond for a Parrot," Nash adverts to the ticklishness of the times, and to the necessity of being extremely guarded in what he might write. "If thou (Kemp) will not accept of it in regard of the envy of some citizens that cannot away with arguments, I'll prefer it (the book) to the soul of Dick Tarlton, who I know will entertain it with thanks, imitating herein that merry man Rabelais, who dedicated most of his works to the soul of the old Queen of Navarre, many years after her death, for that she was a maintainer of mirth in her life. Marry, God send us more of her making, and then some of us should not live so discontented as we do, for nowadays a man cannot have a bout with a ballader, or write Midas habet aures asininas, in great Roman letters, but he shall be in danger of a further displeasure."

Nash's "Isle of Dogs" was doubtless a satire upon the age, which "touched too near" some persons in authority. In the last act of "The Return from Parnassus" the Isle of Dogs is frequently spoken of, and once as if it were a place of refuge. Ingenioso says: "To be brief, Academico, writs are out for me to apprehend me for my plays, and now I am bound for the Isle of Dogs."

[10] Sir J. Harington has an epigram upon the paper war between Harvey and Nash.

TO DOCTOR HARVEY OF CAMBRIDGE.

"The proverb says, who fights with dirty foes Must needs be soil'd, admit they win or lose: Then think it doth a Doctor's credit dash To make himself antagonist to Nash."

—B. II., Epigr. 36.

[11] Tergimini means the three Harveys, for Gabriel took up the cudgels for himself and his two brothers.

[12] The death of Nash is spoken of in the address to a tract, which is the more curious, as it forms a second part to "Pierce Penniless." It has been assigned to Decker, under the title of "News from Hell;" [and it was reprinted under the title of "A Knight's Conjuring." This issue is included in the Percy Society's series.]

[13] [See the list, however, in "Ath. Cantab.," ii. 307-9, and in Hazlitt's "Handbook," in v.]

[14] In 1589 Nash wrote the address prefixed to Robert Greene's "Menaphon," which contains notices of various preceding and contemporary poets, and which has been admired by all but Mr Malone, for the general purity of its style and the justness of its criticism. As Nash was born in November 1567, he was only in his twenty-second year when it was published.

[15] Parts of "Pierce Penniless, his Supplication to the Devil," are written by Nash in a similar strain of bitter grief for past errors, especially a poem inserted near the commencement. [As to Nash's withdrawal of his apology, see Hazlitt in v.]

"Why is't damnation to despair and die When life is my true happiness' disease? My soul! my soul! thy safety makes me fly The faulty means that might my pain appease. Divines and dying men may talk of hell, But in my heart her several torments dwell.

"Ah, worthless wit, to train me to this woe! Deceitful arts that nourish discontent. Ill thrive the folly that bewitch'd me so, Vain thoughts, adieu, for now I will repent. And yet my wants persuade me to proceed, Since none takes pity of a scholar's need."

The last two lines of the first stanza are given to the Father in "The Yorkshire Tragedy," attributed to Shakespeare.

[16] This play (if it do not more properly come under the class of shews, as Nash himself calls it) was not printed until 1600; but internal evidence proves that it was written, and probably performed, as early as the autumn of 1592. Various decisive marks of time are pointed out in notes in the course of the play, the principal of which are, the great drought, the progress of Queen Elizabeth to Oxford, and the breaking out of the plague. The piece was presented at Croydon, at the residence of some nobleman, who is mentioned in many places. The theatres in London were closed at this date in consequence of the mortality. (See Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, in. 299, note). In the prologue we are told that the representation was not on a common stage.

[17] The subsequent account of Will Sommers, or Summer, King Henry the Eighth's celebrated fool, is from the pen of Robert Armin, an author and actor, who himself often played the clown's part in the time of Shakespeare. It is in his "Nest of Ninnies, simply of themselves, without compound," 1608, 4to—

"Will Sommers born in Shropshire, as some say, Was brought to Greenwich on a holiday, Presented to the King; which Fool disdain'd To shake him by the hand, or else asham'd: Howe'er it was, as ancient people say, With much ado was won to it that day. Lean he was, hollow-eyed, as all report. And stoop he did too; yet in all the court, Few men were more belov'd than was this Fool, Whose merry prate kept with the King much rule. When he was sad, the King and he would rhime; Thus Will exiled sadness many a time. I could describe him as I did the rest, But in my mind I do not think it best: My reason this—howe'er I do descry him, So many knew him, that I may belie him; Therefore, to please all people, one by one, I hold it best to let that pains alone. Only thus much: he was a poor man's friend, And help'd the widow often in the end. The King would ever grant what he did crave, For well he knew Will no exacting knave; But wish'd the King to do good deeds great store, Which caus'd the court to love him more and more."

Some few of the personal particulars, here omitted, Nash supplies in the course of this play. [In 1676 a pamphlet was printed, purporting falsely to be] "A pleasant History of the Life and death of Will Summers; how he came first to be known at court, and by what means he got to be King Henry the Eighth's 'Jester.'" It was reprinted by Harding in 1794, with an engraving from an old portrait, supposed to be Will Summer; but if it be authentic, it does not at all support Armin's description of him, that he was "lean and hollow-eyed." Many of the jests are copied from the French and Italian; and [almost all] of them have been assigned also to Scoggin and Tarlton. One or two of these are introduced into S. Rowley's "When you see me you know me," a historical comedy, first printed in 1605, in which Will Summer plays a prominent part.

[18] Hor. Lib. i. Epist. 16, I, 62.

[19] Dick Huntley was, perhaps, the book-holder or prompter who is subsequently mentioned, and whom Will Summer, in the licence of his character, calls by his name. Perhaps his "cousin Ned" was another of the actors. Harry Baker is spoken of in the scene, where Vertumnus is despatched for Christmas and Backwinter.

[20] [The tract here referred to is Robert Copland's poem, called "Jyl of Breyntford's Testament." See Hazlitt's "Handbook," p. 122.] Julian of Brentford, or, as she is here called, Gyllian of Braynford, seems to have been an old woman who had the reputation of possessing supernatural power. In Henslowe's MSS., a play by Thomas Downton and Samuel Ridley, called "Friar Fox and Gillian of Brentford," is mentioned under date of February 1598-9, but it was acted, as appears by the same authority, as early as 5th January 1592. She is noticed in "Westward Hoe!" 1607, where Clare says: "O Master Linstock, 'tis no walking will serve my turn: have me to bed, good, sweet Mistress Honeysuckle. I doubt that old hag Gillian of Braineford has bewitched me." Sig. G 4.

Julian of Brentford's will had been spoken of before by Nash in his epistle "to the Gentlemen Students of both Universities," prefixed to Greene's "Menaphoii," in 1589. "But so farre discrepant is the idle vsage of our unexperienced and illiterated Punies from this prescription, that a tale of Joane a Brainfords Will, and the vnlucky frumenty, will be as soone entertained into their Libraries as the best Poeme that euer Tasso eternisht."

[21] Camden, in his "Annals of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth," thus speaks of the ravages of the plague in 1592-3, "For this whole year the sickness raged violently in London, Saturn passing through the extreme parts of Cancer and the head of Leo, as it did in the year 1563; in so much, that when the year came about, there died of the sickness and other diseases in the city and suburbs, 17,890 persons, besides William Roe, Mayor, and three Aldermen; so that Bartholomew Fair was not kept, and Michaelmas term was held at St Alban's, twenty miles from London."

[22] Vertumnus enters at the same time, but his name is not mentioned in the old 4to at the opening of the scene. He acts the part of a messenger, and, as appears afterwards, was provided with a silver arrow.

[23] Well-flogged.

[24] Hor. lib. i. car. 28—

"Sed omnibus una manet nox, Et calcanda semel via leti."

[25] "The Queen in her summer progress passed through Oxford, and stayed there several days, where she was agreeably entertained with elegant speeches, plays, and disputations, and received a splendid treat from the Lord Buckhurst, Chancellor of the University."—Camden's "Annals of Elizabeth." Her progress is again alluded to in that part of the play where Summer makes his will—

"And finally, O words, now cleanse your course, Unto Eliza, that most sacred dame, Whom none but saints and angels ought to name, All my fair days remaining I bequeath, To wait upon her, till she be return'd," &c.

[26] The following passage in Gabriel Harvey's "New Letter of Notable Contents, 1593," speaking of Nash, confirms the conjecture that Falantado or Falanta was the burden of a song or ballad at the time:—"Let him be the Falanta down-diddle of rhyme, the hayhohaliday of prose, the welladay of new writers, and the cutthroat of his adversaries."

[27] The hobby-horse was a basket-horse used in morris-dances and May games. See note 37 to Greene's "Tu Quoque."

[28] [Hall, the taborer, mentioned in "Old Meg of Herefordshire," 1609. See the reprint in "Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana," 1816.]

[29] A vulgar colloquialism for laying a girl on the grass.

[30] He ran in debt to this amount to usurers, who advanced him money by giving him lute-strings and grey paper; which he was obliged to sell at an enormous loss. There is a very apposite passage in Nash's "Christ's Tears over Jerusalem," 1593, where he is referring to the resort of spendthrifts and prodigals to usurers for supplies: In the first instance, they obtain what they desire, "but at the second time of their coming, it is doubtful to say whether they shall have money or no: the world grows hard, and we are all mortal: let them make him any assurance before a judge, and they shall have some hundred pounds (per consequence) in silks and velvets. The third time if they come, they have baser commodities: the fourth time lute-strings and grey paper; and then, I pray pardon me, I am not for you: pay me that you owe me, and you shall have anything."

So also in Greene's and Lodge's "Looking Glass for London and England," 1594, a gentleman thus addresses a usurer, in hopes of inducing him to relent: "I pray you, sir, consider that my loss was great by the commodity I took up: you know, sir, I borrowed of you forty pounds, whereof I had ten pounds in money, and thirty pounds in lute-strings, which when I came to sell again, I could get but five pounds for them."

[31] Some case of horse-stealing, which had lately taken place, and which had attracted public attention.

[32] See Collier's "Bibliogr. Catal.," ii. 512. Extr. from Stat. Reg., i. 184, and a woodcut in his "Book of Roxburghe Ballads," 1847, p. 103.

[33] The title of an old ballad. Compare Collier's "Extr. from Stationers' Registers," i. 7, 19, and Rimbault's "Book of Songs and Ballads," p. 83.

[34] The words of Aulus Gellius are these: "Neque mihi," inquit. "aedificatio, neque vasum, neque vestimentum ullum est manupreciosum, neque preciosus servus, neque ancilla est: si quid est," inquit, "quod utar, utor: si non est, egeo: suum cuique per me uti atque frui licet." Tum deinde addit: "Vitio vertunt, quia multa egeo; at ego illis quia nequeunt egere."—Noct. Attic., lib. xiii. c. 23.

[35] Ovid "Rem. Am." l. 749.

[36] Nash seems, from various parts of his works, to have been well read in what are called, though not very properly in English, the burlesque poets of Italy. This praise of poverty in the reply of Ver to the accusation of Summer is one proof of his acquaintance with them. See "Capitolo sopra l'epiteto della poverta, a Messer Carlo Capponi," by Matteo Francesi in the Rime Piacevoli del Berni, Copetta, Francesi, &c., vol. ii. p. 48. Edit. Vicenza, 1609—

"In somma ella non ha si del bestiale, Com' altri stima, perche la natura Del poco si contenta, e si prevale," &c.

[37] [Jesus.]

[38] Sir J. Hawkins, in his "Hist. Music," iv. 479, contends that the recorder was the same instrument as that we now term a flageolet. Some have maintained that it is the flute. [See Dyce's "Glossary" to his second edit. of Shakespeare, in v.]

[39] Chaucer [if at least he had anything to do with the poem,] translates day's-eye, or daisy, into margarete in French, in the following stanza from his "Flower and the Leaf"—

"Whereto they enclined everichon With great reverence and that full humbly, And at the lust there began anon A lady for to sing right womanly A bargaret in praising the day's-eye, For as, methought, among her notes swete, She said, Si douce est la margarete."

[40] Nash seems often to have quoted from memory, and here he has either coupled parts of two lines, so as to make one, or he has invented a beginning to the ending of Ovid's "Metam.," ii. 137. [The author seems merely to have introduced scraps of Latin, without much regard to their juxtaposition.]

[41] [A common subject at shows.]

[42] [A jeu-de-mots on the scale in music and the Latin word sol.]

[43] [Some play on words is here probably meant. Eyesore quasi eye-soar.]

[44] It may be doubtful whether this is the right word. Old copy, sonne.

[45] [Old copy, baddest.]

[46] [Old copy, Heber.]

[47] The quarto reads—

"And as for poetry, woods eloquence."

It is no doubt a misprint for words' eloquence, or the eloquence of words.

[48] [Old copy, source. The emendation was suggested by Collier.]

[49] [Former edits.—"Envy envieth not outcries unrest." And so the 4to.]

[50] [Old copy, slight.]

[51] On this subject Camden tells us: "There was both this summer (1592) and the last so great a drought all England over, that the fields were burnt, and the fountains dried up, and a great many beasts perish'd everywhere for want of water. The Thames likewise, the noblest river of all Britain, and which has as full and large a tide as any in Europe (for it flows twice a day above sixty miles from the mouth of it, and receives an increase from the mixture of many other streams and rivers with it), was, however, sunk to that degree (to the wonder of all men) on the 5th September, that a man might ride over it near London Bridge, so shallow was the channel."

[52] There seems to be no account of this flood, unless it was that which occurred in the autumn of 1579. See Stow's "Annals," edit. 1615, fol. 686, and Collier's "Extr. from Stat. Reg.," ii. 105. There was also a great partial flood in 1571; but it is not mentioned as having affected the Thames.

[53] i.e., Persons who had drunk the Thames water fell ill.

[54] Guesses.

[55] Had I wist is had I thought; and the words are often met with as the reproof of imprudence. So afterwards again in this play—

"Young heads count to build on had I wist."

[56] Skelton wrote a humorous doggrel piece called the "Tunning of Elinor Rummin," which is here alluded to.

[57] This anecdote is from Aulus Gellius, "Noct. Attic.," lib. xvii. c. 9—

"Asiam tune tenebat imperio rex Darius: is Histiaeus, cum in Persia apud Darium esset, Aristagorae cuipiam res quasdam occultas nuntiare furtivo scripto volebat: comminiscitur opertum hoc literarum admirandum. Servo suo diu oculos aegros habenti capillum ex capite omni, tanquam medendi gratia, deradit, caputque ejus leve in literarum formas compungit: his literis, quae voluerat, perscripsit: hominem postea, quoad capillus adolesceret, domo continuit: ubi id factum est, ire ad Aristagoram jubet; et cum ad eum, inquit, veneris, mandasse me dicito, ut caput tuum, sicut nuper egomet feci, deradat. Servus ut imperatum erat, ad Aristagoram venit, mandatumque domini affert: atque ille id non esse frustra ratus, quod erat mandatum, fecit: ita literae perlatae sunt."

Herodotus "Terps," c. 35, tells the story somewhat differently. The following is Mr Beloe's translation of it:—

"Whilst he was in this perplexity, a messenger arrived from Histiaeus at Susa, who brought with him an express command to revolt, the particulars of which were impressed in legible characters upon his skull. Histiaeus was desirous to communicate his intentions to Aristagoras; but as the ways were strictly guarded, he could devise no other method. He therefore took one of the most faithful of his slaves, and inscribed what we have mentioned upon his skull, being first shaved; he detained the man till his hair was again grown, when he sent him to Miletus, desiring him to be as expeditious as possible: Aristagoras being requested to examine his skull, he discovered the characters which commanded him to commence a revolt. To this measure Histiaeus was induced by the vexation he experienced from his captivity at Susa."

It is pretty evident that Nash took Aulus Gellius as his authority, from the insertion of the circumstance of the defective sight of the servant, which certainly is important, as giving Histiaeus an excuse for shaving his head.

[58] Peter Bales, who is here immortalised, has also received honourable mention in Holinshed's Chronicle. He was supposed by Evelyn to be the inventor of shorthand, but that art was discovered some years earlier by Dr Timothy Bright, who is better known as the author of "A Treatise of Melancholy," which was first published in 1586. Bales was born in 1547, and many of the incidents of his life have come down to us; for while the lives of poets and philosophers are left in obscurity, the important achievements of a writing-master are detailed by contemporaries with laborious accuracy. Mr D'Israeli, in his "Curiosities of Literature," has not scrupled to devote many pages to Bales's contests for superiority with a rival penman of the name of Johnson. Bales was the improver of Dr Bright's system, and, according to his own account in his "Writing Schoolmaster," he was able to keep pace with a moderate speaker. He seems to have been engaged in public life, by acting as secretary where caligraphy was required; and he was at length accused of being concerned in the plot of Lord Essex; but he was afterwards vindicated, and punished his accuser. The greatest performance, that in which his exalted fame may most securely rest, was the writing of the Lord's Prayer, Creed, Decalogue, with two Latin prayers, in the compass of a penny. Brachygraphy had arrived at considerable perfection soon after 1600, and in Webster's "Devil's Law Case," there is a trial scene, in which the following is part of the dialogue—

SANITONELLA. Do you hear, officers? You must take special care that you let in No brachygraphy men to take notes.

1st OFFICER. No. sir.

SANITONELLA. By no means: We cannot have a cause of any fame, But you must have some scurvy pamphlets and lewd ballads Engendered of it presently.

In Heywood's "Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas," 1637, he complains that some persons by stenography had drawn the plot of his play, and put it into print; but he adds (which certainly does not tell much in favour of the perfection of the art as then practised) that it was "scarce one word true."

[59] In the margin opposite "Sol should have been beholding to the barber, and not to the beard-master," the words "Imberbis Apollo, a beardless poet," are inserted in the margin.

[60] From what is said here, and in other parts of the play, we may conclude that it was performed either by the children of St Paul's, of the Queen's Chapel, or of the Revels. Afterwards Will Summer, addressing the performers, says to them: "Learn of him, you diminutive urchins, how to behave yourselves in your vocations," &c. The epilogue is spoken by a little boy, who sits on Will Summer's knee, and who, after it is delivered, is carried out.

[61] [See Keightley's "Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy," p. 411, edit. 1854.]

[62] [In allusion to the proverb.]

[63] Arre is meant to indicate the snarling of a dog.

[64] So Machiavelli, in his complete poem, "Dell' Asino d'Oro," makes the Hog, who is maintaining the superiority of the brute creation to man, say of beasts in general—

"Questa san meglior usar color che sanno Senz' altra disciplina per se stesso Seguir lor bene et evitar lor danno."—Cap. viii.

[65] [Old copy, I, and his deep insight.]

[66] An allusion to Sebastian Brandt's "Ship of Fools," translated by Alexander Barclay.

[67] So in "the second three-man's song," prefixed to Dekker's "Shoemaker's Holiday," 1600, though in one case the bowl was black, in the other brown—

"_Trowl the bowl_, the jolly _nut-brown_ bowl; And here, kind mate, to thee! Let's sing a dirge for Saint Hugh's soul, And drown it merrily_."

It seems probable that this was a harvest-home song, usually sung by reapers in the country: the chorus or burden, "Hooky, hooky," &c. is still heard in some parts of the kingdom, with this variation—

"Hooky, hooky, we have shorn, And bound what we did reap, And we have brought the harvest home, To make bread good and cheap."

Which is an improvement, inasmuch as harvests are not brought home to town.

[68] Shakespeare has sufficiently shown this in the character of Francis, the drawer, in "Henry IV. Part I."

[69] [A play on the double meaning of the word].

[70] In the original copy this negative is by some accident thrust into the next line, so as to destroy at once the metre and the meaning. It is still too much in the first line.

[71] This expression must allude to the dress of Harvest, which has many ears of wheat about it in various parts. Will Summer, after Harvest goes out, calls him, on this account, "a bundle of straw," and speaks of his "thatched suit."

[72] A line from a well-known ballad of the time.

[73] [Old copy, attract.]

[74] In allusion to the ears of corn, straw, &c., with which he was dressed.

[75] Old copy, God's.

[76] The exclamations of a carter to his horse. In "John Bon and Mast. Person" (Hazlitt's "Popular Poetry," iv. 16), it is haight, ree.

[77] Old copy, had.

[78] i.e., Cheated.

[79] A play upon the similarity of sound between vetches and fetches. In the old copy, to render it the more obvious, they are spelt alike.

[80] Mr Todd found this word in Baret's "Alveary," 1580, as well as in Cotgrave; but he quotes no authority for the signification he attaches to it—viz., a lubber. Nash could have furnished him with a quotation: it means an idle lazy fellow.

[81] Alluding to the attraction of straw by jet. See this point discussed in Sir Thos. Brown's "Vulgar Errors," b. ii. c. 4.

[82] [Old copy, I had.]

[83] [Old copy, there.]

[84] This song is quoted, and a long dissertation inserted upon it, in the notes to "Henry IV. Part II." act v. sc. ii., where Silence gives the two last lines in drinking with Falstaff. To do a man right was a technical expression in the art of drinking. It was the challenge to pledge. None of the commentators on Shakespeare are able to explain at all satisfactorily what connection there is between Domingo and a drinking song. Perhaps we should read Domingo as two words, i.e., Do [mine] Mingo.

[85] [Old copy, patinis.]

[86] Horace, lib. i. car. 37—

"Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero Pulsanda tellus."

[87] [Old copy, epi.]

[88] [A line out of a ballad.]

[89] Micher, in this place, signifies what we now call a flincher: in general, it means a truant—one who lurks and hides himself out of the way. See Mr Gifford's short note on Massinger's "Guardian," act iii. sc. v., and Mr Steevens' long note on Shakespeare's "Henry IV. Part I." act ii. sc. 4.

[90] [Friesland beer. See "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," vol. ii. p. 259.]

[91] [See Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 271.] Properly super ungulum, referring to knocking the jack on the thumb-nail, to show that the drinker had drained it. Ben Jonson uses it in his "Case is Altered:" "I confess Cupid's carouse; he plays super nagulum with my liquor of life."—Act iv. sc. 3.—Collier.

[92] This was the common cry of the English soldiers in attacking an enemy: we meet with it in Marlowe's "Edward II." where Warwick exclaims—

"Alarum to the fight! St George for England, and the Baron's right!"

So also in Rowley's "When you see me, you know me," 1605: "King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table that were buried in armour are alive again, crying St George for England! and mean shortly to conquer Rome."

[93] From the insertion of Toy in this song instead of Mingo, as it stands on the entrance of Bacchus and his companions, we are led to infer that the name of the actor who played the part of Will Summer was Toy: if not, there is no meaning in the change. Again, at the end of the piece, the epilogue says in express terms: "The great fool Toy hath marred the play," to which Will Summers replies, "Is't true, Jackanapes? Do you serve me so?" &c. Excepting by supposing that there was an actor of this name, it is not very easy to explain the following expressions by Gabriel Harvey, as applied to Greene, in his "Four Letters and Certain Sonnets, 1592," the year when Nash's "Summer's Last Will and Testament" was performed: "They wrong him much with their epitaphs and solemn devices, that entitle him not at the least the second Toy of London, the stale of Paul's," &c.

[94] Nipitaty seems to have been a cant term for a certain wine. Thus Gabriel Harvey, in "Pierce's Supererogation," 1593, speaks of "the Nipitaty of the nappiest grape;" and afterwards he says, "Nipitaty will not be tied to a post," in reference to the unconfined tongues of man who drink it.—Collier.

[95] A passage quoted in Note 6 to "Gammer Gurton's Needle," from Nash's "Pierce Penniless," is precisely in point, both in explaining the word, and knocking the cup, can, or jack on the thumb-nail, previously performed by Bacchus.

[96] Closely is secretly: a very common application of the word in our old writers. It is found in "Albumazar"—

"I'll entertain him here: meanwhile steal you Closely into the room;"

and in many other places.

[97] Old copy, Hope.

[98] Old copy, as this, like.

[99] Old copy, Will.

[100] The "shepherd that now sleeps in skies" is Sir Philip Sidney, and the line, with a slight inversion for the sake of the rhyme, is taken from a sonnet in "Astrophel and Stella," appended to the "Arcadia"—

"Because I breathe not love to every one, Nor do I use set colours for to wear, Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair, Nor give each speech a full point of a groan, The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan Of them who in their lips love's standard bear, 'What he?' say they of me, 'now I dare swear He cannot love: no, no; let him alone.' And think so still, so Stella know my mind: Profess, indeed, I do not Cupid's art; But you, fair maids, at length this true shall find, That his right badge is but worn in the heart. Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove: They love indeed who quake to say they love."

—P. 537, edit. 1598.

It may be worth a remark that the two last lines are quoted with a difference in "England's Parnassus," 1600, p. 191—

"Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove; They love indeed who dare not say they love."

In the quarto copy of Nash's play the word swains is misprinted for swans. The introduction to the passage would have afforded Mr Malone another instance, had he wanted one, that shepherd and poet were used almost as synonymes by Shakespeare's contemporaries.

[101] Perhaps we ought to read feign instead of frame; but frame is very intelligible, and it has therefore not been altered.

[102] The quarto gives this line thus—

"Of secrets more desirous or than men,"

which is decidedly an error of the press.

[103] [Old copy, every.]

[104] [Old copy, true hell.]

[105] See act i. sc. 3 of "Macbeth"—

2D WITCH. I'll give thee a wind.

1ST WITCH. Thou art kind.

3D WITCH. And I another.

From the passage in Nash's play, it seems that Irish and Danish witches could sell winds: Macbeth's witches were Scotish.

[106] [Old copy, party.]

[107] [Old copy, Form'd.]

[108] As usual, Nash has here misquoted, or the printer has omitted a word. Virgil's line is—

"Fama malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum."

—"Aeneid," iv. 174.

Gabriel Harvey, replying in 1597, in his "Trimming of Thomas Nash, Gentleman" (written in the name of Richard Litchfield, the barber-surgeon of Trinity College, Cambridge), also alludes to this commonplace: "The virtuous riches wherewith (as broad-spread fame reporteth) you are endued, though fama malum (as saith the poet) which I confirm," &c. Perhaps this was because Nash had previously employed it, or it might be supposed that the barber would have been unacquainted with it.

[109] A soldier of this sort, or one pretending to be a soldier, is a character often met with in our old comedies, such as Lieutenant Maweworm and Ancient Hautboy in "A Mad World, my Masters," Captain Face in "Ram-Alley," &c.

[110] [Dii minores.]

[111] Pedlar's French was another name for the cant language used by vagabonds. What pedlars were may be judged from the following description of them in "The Pedlar's Prophecy," a comedy printed in 1595, but obviously written either very early in the reign of Elizabeth, or perhaps even in that of her sister—

"I never knew honest man of this occupation. But either he was a dycer, a drunkard, a maker of shift, A picker, or cut-purse, a raiser of simulation, Or such a one as run away with another man's wife."

[112] [Old copy, by.]

[113] Ink-horn is a very common epithet of contempt for pedantic and affected expressions. The following, from Churchyard's "Choice," sig. E e 1., sets it in its true light—

"As Ynkehorne termes smell of the schoole sometyme."

It went out of use with the disuse of ink-horns. It would be very easy to multiply instances where the word is employed in our old writers. It most frequently occurs in Wilson's "Rhetoric," where is inserted an epistle composed of ink-horn terms; "suche a letter as Wylliam Sommer himself could not make a better for that purpose. Some will thinke, and swere it too, that there never was any suche thing written: well, I will not force any man to beleve it, but I will saie thus much, and abyde by it too, the like have been made heretofore, and praised above the moone." It opens thus—

"Ponderying, expendying, and revolutying with myself, your urgent affabilitee, and ingenious capacitee, for mundaine affaires, I cannot but celebrate and extolle your magnificall dexteritee above all other; for how could you have adopted such illustrate, prerogative, and dominicall superioritee, if the fecunditee of your inginie had not been so fertile and wonderfull pregnant?"—Fo. 86. edit. 1553. Wilson elsewhere calls them "ink-pot terms."

[114] [The popular idea at that time, and long afterwards, of Machiavelli, arising from a misconception of his drift in "Il Principe." See an article on this subject in Macaulay's "Essays."]

[115] [Old copy, toucheth, which may, of course, be right; but the more probable word is that here substituted.]

[116] [The "Ebrietatis Encomium."]

[117] [Perhaps the "Image of Idleness," of which there was an edition in 1581. See Hazlitt's "Handbook," p. 291, and ibid. Suppl.]

[118] Nash alludes to a celebrated burlesque poem by Francisco Copetta, entitled (in the old collection of productions of the kind, made in 1548, and many times afterwards reprinted), "Capitolo nel quale si lodano le Noncovelle." Some of the thoughts in Rochester's well-known piece seem taken from it. A notion of the whole may be formed from the following translation of four of the terze rime—

"Nothing is brother to primaeval matter, 'Bout which philosophers their brains may batter To find it out, but still their hopes they flatter.

"Its virtue is most wondrously display'd, For in the Bible, we all know, 'tis said, God out of nothing the creation made.

"Yet nothing has nor head, tail, back, nor shoulder, And tho' than the great Dixit it is older, Its strength is such, that all things first shall moulder.

"The rank of nothing we from this may see: The mighty Roman once declared that he Caesar or nothing was resolv'd to be."

[But after all, had not Nash more probably in his recollection Sir Edward Dyer's "Praise of Nothing," a prose tract printed in 1585?]

[119] [See Hazlitt's "Handbook," v. Fleming.]

[120] [Alluding to the "Grobianus et Grobiana" of Dedekindus.]

[121] Ovid's lines are these—

"Discite, qui sapitis, non quae nos scimus inertes, Sed trepidas acies, et fera castra sequi."

—"Amorum," lib. iii. el. 8.

[122] The author of "The World's Folly," 1615, uses squitter-wit in the same sense that Nash employs squitter-book: "The primum mobile, which gives motion to these over-turning wheels of wickedness, are those mercenary squitter-wits, miscalled poets."

In "The Two Italian Gentlemen," the word squitterbe-book, or squitter-book, is found, and with precisely the same signification which Nash gives it—

"I would mete with the scalde squitterbe-booke for this geare."

[123] His nown, instead of his own, was not an uncommon corruption. So Udall—"Holde by his yea and nay, be his nowne white sonne."

[124] [Old copy, Fuilmerodach.]

[125] Regiment has been so frequently used in the course of these volumes, in the sense of government or rule, that it is hardly worth a note.

[126] This is, of course, spoken ironically, and of old, the expression good fellow bore a double signification, which answered the purpose of Will Summer. Thus, in Lord Brooke's "Caelica," sonnet 30—

"Good fellows, whom men commonly doe call. Those that do live at warre with truth and shame."

Again, in Heywood's "Edward IV. Part I.," sig. E 4—

"KING EDWARD. Why, dost thou not love a good fellow?

"HOBS. No, good fellows be thieves."

[127] Henry Baker was therefore the name of the actor who performed the part of Vertumnus.

[128] The joke here consists in the similarity of sound between despatch and batch, Will Summers mistaking, or pretending to mistake, in consequence.

[129] [Old copy, Sybalites.]

[130] This is still, as it was formerly, the mode of describing the awkward bowing of the lower class. In the "Death of Robert Earl of Huntington," 1601, when Will Brand, a vulgar assassin, is introduced to the king, the stage direction to the actor in the margin is, "Make Legs."

[131] A proverb in [Heywood's "Epigrams," 1562. See Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 270. Old copy, love me a little.]

[132] [Old copy, deny.]

[133] The meaning of the word snudge is easily guessed in this place, but it is completely explained by T. Wilson, in his "Rhetoric," 1553, when he is speaking of a figure he calls diminution, or moderating the censure applied to vices by assimilating them to the nearest virtues: thus he would call "a snudge or pynche-penny a good husband, a thrifty man" (fo. 67). Elsewhere he remarks: "Some riche snudges, having great wealth, go with their hose out at heels, their shoes out at toes, and their cotes out at both elbowes; for who can tell if such men are worth a grote when their apparel is so homely, and all their behavior so base?" (fo. 86.) The word is found in Todd's Johnson, where Coles is cited to show that snudge means "one who hides himself in a house to do mischief." No examples of the employment of the word by any of our writers are subjoined.

[134] Mr Steevens, in a note to "Hamlet," act iv. sc. 5, says that he thinks Shakespeare took the expression of hugger-mugger there used from North's Plutarch, but it was in such common use at the time that twenty authors could be easily quoted who employ it: it is found in Ascham, Sir J. Harington, Greene, Nash, Dekker, Tourneur, Ford, &c. In "The Merry Devil of Edmonton" also is the following line—

"But you will to this gear in hugger-mugger."

[135] It is not easy to guess why Nash employed this Italian word instead of an English one. Lento means lazy, and though an adjective, it is used here substantively; the meaning, of course, is that the idle fellow who has no lands begs.

[136] i.e., Hates. See note to "Merchant of Venice," act v. sc. 1.

[137] [Old copy, Hipporlatos. The emendation was suggested by Collier.]

[138] The reader is referred to "Romeo and Juliet," act i. sc. 4, respecting the strewing of rushes on floors instead of carpets. Though nothing be said upon the subject, it is evident that Back-winter makes a resistance before he is forced out, and falls down in the struggle.

[139] [Soiling: a common word in our early writers. Old copy, wraying.]

[140] I pray you, hold the book well, was doubtless addressed to the prompter, or as he is called in the following passage, from the Induction to Ben Jonson's "Cynthia's Revels," 1601, the book-holder: one of the children of Queen Elizabeth's chapel is speaking of the poet. "We are not so officiously befriended by him as to have his presence in the 'tiring house to prompt us aloud, stampe at the booke-holder, sweare for our properties, curse the poor tire-man, raile the musicke out of tune, and sweat for every veniall trespasse we commit, as some author would."

[141] [Old copy, cares. The word murmuring is, by an apparent error, repeated in the 4to from the preceding line.]

[142] [Old copy, ears.]

[143] Ready.

[144] This line fixes the date when "Summer's Last Will and Testament" was performed very exactly—viz., during Michaelmas Term, 1593; for Camden informs us in his "Annals," that in consequence of the plague, Michaelmas Term, instead of being held in London, as usual, was held at St Albans.

[145] "Deus, Deus, ille, Menalca! Sis bonus o felixque tuis." —Virgil "Ecl." v. 64.

[146] These words, which are clearly a stage direction, and which show how mere a child delivered the Epilogue, in the old copy are made part of the text.

[147] Malone originally supposed the plays to be by Heywood, and so treated them. In the last edit. of Shakespeare by Boswell (iii. 99) the mistake is allowed to remain, and in a note also "The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington" is quoted as Heywood's production.

[148] Ritson, in his "Robin Hood," I. li. et seq., gives some quotations from them, as by Munday and Chettle.

[149] Mr Gifford fell into an error (Ben Jonson, vi. 320) in stating that "The Case is Altered" "should have stood at the head of Jonson's works, had chronology only been consulted." In the "Life of Ben Jonson," he refers to Henslowe's papers to prove that "Every Man in his Humour" was written in 1596, and in "The Case is Altered," Ben Jonson expressly quotes Meres' "Palladia Tamia," which was not published until 1598. Nash's "Lenten Stuff," affords evidence that "the witty play of 'The Case is Altered'" was popular in 1599.

[150] On the title-page of his translation of "Palmerin of England," the third part of which bears date in 1602, he is called "one of the Messengers of her Majesty's Chamber;" but how, and at what date he obtained this "small court appointment," we are without information. Perhaps it was given to him as a reward for his services in 1582.

[151] Munday did not always publish under his own name, and according to Ritson, whose authority has often been quoted on this point, translated "The Orator, written in French by Alexander Silvayn," under the name of Lazarus Piot, from the dedication to which it may be inferred that he had been in the army. "A ballad made by Ant. Munday, of the encouragement of an English soldier to his fellow mates," was licenced to John Charlewood, in 1579.

[152] [See the more copious memoir of Munday by Mr Collier, prefixed to the Shakespeare Society's edit. of his "John-a-Kent," &c., 1851.]

[153] That is, no printed copy has yet been discovered, although it may have passed through the press.

[154] In Henslowe's MSS. this play is also called, "The First part of Cardinal Wolsey."

[155] In 1620 was printed "The World toss'd at Tennis, by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley." Perhaps it is the same play, and Munday had a share in the authorship of it. [This is not at all probable.]

[156] There is no list of characters prefixed to the old copy.

[157] This forms the Induction to the play, which purports to have been written to be performed before Henry VIII., by Sir Thomas Mantle, who performed Robin Hood, by Sir John Eltham, who played the part of Little John, by Skelton, who acted Friar Tuck, by "Little Tracy," as he is called, who supported the character of Maid Marian, and others, whose names are not mentioned. The whole is only supposed to be a rehearsal prior to the representation of the piece before the king, and in the course of it Skelton and Sir John Eltham have various critical and explanatory interlocutions. Skelton, it will be observed, also undertakes the duty of interpreting the otherwise "inexplicable dumb-show." The old copy is not divided into acts and scenes.

[158] [Old copy, your.]

[159] [In the old copy this direction is unnecessarily repeated in detail.]

[160] [The direction inserted on p. 107 is repeated in full in the 4to.]

[161] This is in some sort a parody upon the well-known proverb, which is thus given by Ray—

"Many talk of Robin Hood, that never shot in his bow, And many talk of Little John, that never did him know."

It is also found in Camden's "Remains," by Philpot, 1636, p. 302, though the two lines, obviously connected in sense, are there separated. [See also Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 276.]

[162] This sort of verse, from the frequent use of it made by Skelton in his poems, acquired the name of Skeltonic or Skeltonical. According to the manner in which the poet's character is drawn, he could not avoid falling into the use of it, even out of its place, in the course of the play; and of this a singular instance is given after the capture and discovery of Ely, when Sir John Eltham, in one of the interlocutions, complains of Skelton that in performing the part of Friar Tuck he fell—

"Into the vein Of ribble-rabble rhimes Skeltonical."

In 1589 was published a tract with the following curious title—

"A Skeltonical salutation, Or condigne gratulation, And just vexation Of the Spanish nation; That in bravado Spent many a crusado In setting forth an Armado England to invado."

The whole piece is in this kind of verse. A copy of it is in the British Museum.

Puttenham, speaking of poetry of this sort, says: "Such were the rimes of Skelton (usurping the name of Poet Laureat), being in deede but a rude, rayling rimer, and all his doings ridiculous; he used both short distances and short measures, pleasing onely to the popular eare; in our courtly maker we banish them utterly."—Arte of English Poesie, 1589, p. 69.

[163] Matilda is here, and elsewhere, called Marian, before in fact she takes that name; and after she has assumed it, in the course of the play she is frequently called Matilda.

[164] [Old copy, Into.]

[165] Jest is used in the same sense in "The Spanish Tragedy," act i., where the king exclaims—

"But where is old Hieronimo, our marshal? He promis'd us, in honour of our guest, To grace our banquet with some pompous jest."

Dr Farmer, in reference to the line in "Richard II., act i. sc. 3—

"As gentle and as jocund as to jest,"

quotes the above passage from "The Spanish Tragedy" to show that to jest, "in old language, means to play a part in a mask."

[166] [Old copy, my.]

[167] [Old copy, place.]

[168] Ritson has the following note upon this sign: "That is, the inn so called, upon Ludgate Hill. The modern sign, which, however, seems to have been the same 200 years ago, is a bell and a wild man; but the original is supposed to have been a beautiful Indian, and the inscription, La belle Sauvage. Some, indeed, assert that the inn once belonged to a Lady Arabella Sauvage; and others that its name originally, the belle and Sauvage, arose (like the George and Blue Boar) from the junction of two inns with those respective signs. Non nostrum est tantas componere lites." "Robin Hood," I. p. liv.

[169] [Old copy, meant.]

[170] Little John's exit is marked here in the old copy, but it does not take place till afterwards: he first whispers Marian, as we are told immediately, John in the original standing for Little John.

[171] i.e., A collection or company, and not, as we now use the word, a kind "of fawning sycophants."

[172] i.e., Made a Justice of Peace of him, entitling him to the style of Worship.

[173] [Old copy, ran.]

[174] i.e., "I shall be even with you." So Pisaro in Haughton's "Englishmen for my Money," says of his three daughters—

"Well, I shall find a tune to meet with them."—Sig. E 2.

[175] Alluding to the challenges of the officers who are aiding and assisting the Sheriff.

[176] Paris Garden (or as it is printed in the old copy, Parish Garden), was a place where bears were baited and other animals kept. Curtal was a common term for a small horse, and that which Banks owned, and which acquired so much celebrity for its sagaciousness, is so called by Webster—

"And some there are Will keep a curtal to show juggling tricks, And give out 'tis a spirit."

—"Vittoria Corombona," [Webster's Works, by Hazlitt, ii. 47.]

Sib is related to; and perhaps the ape's only least at Paris Garden, may apply to Banks's pony. Dekker, in his "Villanies Discovered," 1620, mentions in terms "Bankes his Curtal."

[177] In the course of the play John is sometimes called Earl John, and sometimes Prince John, as it seems, indifferently.

[178] [Old copy, deceive.]

[179] It must be recollected that the Queen and Marian have exchanged dresses.

[180] [Old copy, must.]

[181] [Old copy, sovereign's mother, queen.]

[182] [Old copy, cankers]

[183] [Old copy, thrust.]

[184] Haught is frequently used for haughty, when the poet wants to abridge it of a syllable: thus Shakespeare, in "Richard III." act ii. sc. 3—

"And the queen's sons and brothers haught and proud."

He has also "the haught Northumberland" and "the haught Protector."

Kyd in "Cornelia," act iv., also has this line—

"Pompey, the second Mars, whose haught renown."

[185] [Old copy, Ah, my good Lord, for, etc.]

[186] i.e., Shall not separate us till we die. See Gifford's note to "The Renegado."—Massinger's Works, ii. 136.

[187] Palliard is to be found in Dryden's "Hind and Panther:" palliardize is not in very common use among our old writers. Dekker, in his "Bellman of London," 1616, sig. D 2, gives a description of a Palliard. Tuck's exclamation looks as if it were quoted.

[188] In the old copy, Scarlet and Scathlock are also mentioned as entering at this juncture, but they were on the stage before.

[189] The mistake to which Warman alludes is, that Friar Tuck takes part with Robin Hood, instead of assisting the Sheriff against him.

[190] This incident, with some variations, is related in the old ballad of "Robin Hood rescuing the Widow's three sons from the Sheriff, when going to be executed." See Ritson's "Robin Hood," ii. 151.

[191] The old copy has a blank here; but whether it was so in the original MS., whether a line has dropped out by accident, or whether it was meant that Much should be suddenly interrupted by Robin Hood, must be matter of conjecture.

[192] So printed in the old copy, as if part of some poetical narrative.

[193] i.e., Gang. So written by Milton, Jonson, and many of our best authors.

[194] [Old copy, all your.]

[195] [Old copy, never wife.]

[196] [Old copy, in a loath'd.]

[197] [Own, from the Latin proprius.]

[198] To lie at the ward was, and is still, a term in fencing; thus Fairfax, translating the fight between Tancred and Argantes in the 6th book of Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered," says—

"Close at his surest ward each champion lieth."

—"Godfrey of Bulloigne," 1600.

[199] The exit of Salisbury is not marked, but it of course takes place here.

[200] It seems singular that the author of this play should confound two such persons as the Shoemaker of Bradford, who made all comers "vail their staves," and George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield; yet such is the case in the text. The exploits of both are celebrated in the play of "The Pinner of Wakefield" (in Dyce's editions of Greene's Works), which seems to have been popular. Nevertheless Henslowe in his MSS. speaks of George-a-Greene as one dramatic piece, and of "The Pinner of Wakefield" as another, as if they were two distinct heroes. See "Malone's Shakespeare," by Boswell, iii. 300. Munday also makes Scathlock and Scarlet two separate persons. [Munday does not confound the Pinder of Wakefield with the Bradford hero, for he expressly distinguishes between them; but he errs in giving the latter the name of George-a-Greene.]

[201] To record, as applied to birds, is synonymous to the verb to sing: thus in "The Spanish Tragedy," act ii.—

"Hark, madam, how the birds record by night."

Shakespeare so employs the word in his "Two Gentlemen of Verona," act v. sc. 4, and in the notes upon the passage more than sufficient instances are collected.

[202] The 4to reads "the lawless Rener" [the n being misprinted for u].

[203] Mort was the old cant word for a wench, and was synonymous with doxy, which is still sometimes in use. An explanation, for such as require it, may be found in Dekker'a "Bellman of London," ed. 1616, sig. N.

[204] Mr Todd, in his "Dictionary," thus explains the word belive: "Speedily, quickly; it is still common in Westmoreland for presently, which sense, implying a little delay, like our expression of by and by, was formerly the general acceptation of the word." Spenser uses it not unfrequently—

"Perdie, Sir Knight," said then the enchanter b'live, "That shall I shortly purchase to your bond."

—"Faerie Queene," b. ii. c. iii. st. 18.

[205] Manchet is fine white bread: panis candidior et purior.

[206] It seems agreed by the commentators on the word proface (which Shakespeare uses in "Henry IV. Part II.," act v. sc. 3), that it means in fact what Robin Hood has already said: "Much good may it do you." It is disputed whether it be derived from the French or the Italian; Mr Todd gives prouface as the etymology, and Malone pro vi faccia, but in fact they are one and the same. It occurs in "The Widow's Tears," act iv. sc. 1, where Ero is eating and drinking in the tomb. [Compare Dyce's "Shakespeare," 1868, Gloss, in v.]

[207] The 4to terms them poting sticks, and so sometimes they were called, instead of poking sticks. They were used to plait and set ruffs.

[208] The old copy here repeats, in part, the preceding stage direction, viz., Enter Friar like a pedlar, and Jenny, which must be an error, as they are already on the stage; in fact, only Sir Doncaster and his armed followers enter. The exit of Robin Hood, with Marian and Fitzwater, is not noticed.

[209] i.e., Thrive.

[210] The rhyme is made out by reading certainly, but the old copy, [which is printed as prose.] has it certain.

[211] This stage direction, like many others, is not marked.

[212] So in "Henry VI. Part III." act iii. sc. 3: "Did I impale him with the regal crown?" This use of the word is common.

[213] [Old copy, light.]

[214] See Mr Steevens' note on "Henry VIII.," act v. sc. 3.

[215] These two lines clearly belong to the Prior, though the old copy omits his name before them.

[216] i.e., Vengeance.

[217] [Old copy, Souldans.]

[218] In the old copy soldiour's.

[219] See Mr Gifford's note (6) to "The Maid of Honour," Massinger's Works, iii. 47, for an explanation of the origin and use of this expression of contempt. See also Malone's remarks upon the passage in "Twelfth Night," act iii. sc. 4: "He is a knight dubb'd with an unhatch'd rapier and on carpet consideration."

[220] On the standard by which Leicester was attended on his entrance, no doubt the crest of that family, viz., a bear and ragged staff, was represented. To this the queen refers when she exclaims—

"Were this bear loose, how he would tear our maws."

[221] [Old copy, Bear, thou hast. Leicester was accompanied by his ancient, whose entrance is marked above.]

[222] Quite is frequently used for requite: as in Massinger's "Old Law," act ii. sc. 2—

"In troth, Eugenia, I have cause to weep too; But when I visit, I come comfortably, And look to be so quited."

[223] Although the old copy mentions no more at the beginning of this interview than Enter Leicester, drum and ancient, yet according to this speech he must either have been more numerously attended, or some of his followers came upon the stage during his dispute with the king and queen.

[224] The return of Leicester and Richmond, after their exit just before, is not mentioned in the 4to.

[225] [Old copy, Come off, off.]

[226] Guests were often formerly spelt guess, whether it were or were not necessary for the rhyme.

[227] The stage direction in the original is only Enter Robin.

[228] This must have been spoken aside to Robin Hood.

[229] [Old copy, soon.]

[230] [This passage appears to point to some antecedent drama not at present known.]

[231] The 4to has it Damn'd Judaism, but the allusion is to the treachery of Judas. The jailer of Nottingham afterwards calls Warman Judas.

[232] [Old copy, him.]

[233] In the old copy this is made a part of what Warman speaks, which is a mistake, as is evident from the context.

[234] Her exit and re-entrance are not marked in the old copy. Perhaps she only speaks from a window.

[235] ["A term of contempt," says Halliwell in v.; but does it not refer strictly to a card-sharper?]

[236] He blunders. Of course he means "when tidings came to his ears." He does not make much better of his prose.

[237] Current.

[238] This is from the old ballad, "The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield, with Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John," with variations—

"At Michaelmas next my cov'nant comes out When every man gathers his fee; Then I'll take my blue blade all in my hand, And plod to the greenwood with thee."

—Ritson's "Robin Hood," ii. 18.

[239] It is evident that Friar Tuck here gives John a sword.

[240] [Light, active. See Nares, edit. 1859, in v.]

[241] The origin of amort is French, and sometimes it is written Tout-a-la-mort, as in "The Contention between Liberality and Prodigality," 1602, sig. B, as pointed out in a note to "Ram Alley."

[242] [Query, best hanged? He refers to the ex-sheriff.]

[243] Defy is here used in the sense of refuse, which was not uncommon: thus in the "Death of Robert Earl of Huntington," we have this passage, "Or, as I said, for ever I defy your company." In the "Four 'Prentices of London," act i. sc. 1, the old Earl of Boulogne says—

"Vain pleasures I abhor, all things defy, That teach not to despair, or how to die."

Other instances are collected in a note to the words, "I do defy thy conjuration," from "Romeo and Juliet," act v. sc. 3.

[244] Their entrance is not marked in the original.

[245] [Old copy, sweet.]

[246] It will be seen from the introduction to this play, that Munday and others, according to Henslowe, wrote a separate play under the title of "The Funeral of Richard Cordelion." [The latter drama was not written till some months after this and the ensuing piece, and was intended as a sort of sequel to the plays on the history of Robin Hood.]

[247] Misprinted Dumwod in the old copy.

[248] Two lines in the Epilogue might be quoted to show that only one author was concerned in it—

"Thus is Matilda's story shown in act, And rough-hewn out by an uncunning hand."

But probably the assertion is not to be taken strictly; or if it be, it will not prove that Chettle had no hand, earlier or later, in the authorship. Mr Gifford in his Introduction to Ford's Works, vol. i. xvi., remarks very truly, that we are not to suppose from the combination of names of authors "that they were always simultaneously employed in the production of the same play;" and Munday, who was perhaps an elder poet than Chettle, may have himself originally written both parts of "The Earl of Huntington," the connection of Chettle with them being subsequent, in making alterations or adapting them to the prevailing taste.

[249] See "The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington," Introd. pp. 95, 96, ante.

[250] See "Restituta," ii. 367 (note).

[251] "Bibl. Poet." 159. [But see Hazlitt's "Handbook," v. C. II.]

[252] [Henslowe's "Diary," 1845, p. 147. See also Collier's "Memoirs of the Actors in Shakespeare's Plays," p. 111.]

[253] Introduction to "Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington," pp. 101, 102.

[254] With the letters R.A. on the title-page. [But surely it is very doubtful whether the play printed in 1615 (and again in 1663) is the same as that mentioned by Henslowe.]

[255] [Unless it be the drama printed in 1604 under the title of the "Wit of a Woman."]

[256] [Possibly a revival, with alterations, of Edwardes' play.]

[257] There is no list of characters prefixed to the old 4to.

[258] i.e., Skelton, who is supposed by the author to have acted the part of Friar Tuck, and who, when first he comes on the stage, is without his gown and hood.

[259] [Old copy, Hurt. The two are inside plotting together. See infra.]

[260] [The Queen Mother.]

[261] Wight means active, or (sometimes) clever. It may be matter of conjecture whether "white boy," "white poet," "white villain," &c., so often found in old dramatists, have not this origin.

[262] It is very obvious that Much begins his answer at "Cry ye mercy, Master King," but his name is omitted in the old 4to.

[263] The old copy adds here Exeunt, and a new scene is marked; but this is a mistake, as Robin Hood just afterwards converses with the Prior, Sir Doncaster, and Warman, without any new entrance on their part. They retire to the back of the stage.

[264] Warman is not mentioned, but we find him on the stage just afterwards, and he probably enters with Robin Hood. The entrance of Friar Tuck is also omitted.

[265] i.e., Winding his horn.

[266] The 4to, reads "Pity of mind, thine," &c.

[267] See the last scene of the first part of this play.

[268] The 4to merely reads exit.

[269] "And yet more medicinal is it than that Moly That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave." —Milton's "Comus."

There are several kinds of moly, and one of them distinguished among horticulturists as Homer's moly. Sir T. Brown thus quaintly renders two lines in the "Odyssey" relating to it—

"The gods it Moly call whose root to dig away Is dangerous unto man, but gods they all things may."

[270] [Displeased.]

[271] [Old copy, whindling. See Halliwell, v. Whimlen. There is also windilling; but the word is one of those terms of contempt used by early writers rather loosely.]

[272] These two lines are taken, with a slight change, from the ballad of "The Jolly Finder of Wakefield." See Ritson's "Robin Hood," ii. 16—

"In Wakefleld there lives a jolly pinder, In Wakefield all on a green," &c.

[273] [Old copy, monuments.]

[274] Ritson ("Notes and Illustrations to Robin Hood," i. 62) observes correctly that Fitzwater confounds one man with another, and that Harold Harefoot was the son and successor of Canute the Great.

[275] [Old copy, them.]

[276] "In a trice" is the usual expression. See a variety of instances collected by Mr Todd in his Dictionary, but none of them have it "with a trice," as in this place. The old copy prints the ordinary abbreviation for with, which may have been misread by the printer. [With is no doubt wrong, and has been altered.]

[277] The scenes are marked, though incorrectly, in the old copy thus far; but the rest of the play is only divided by the exits or entrances of the characters.

[278] Jenny, a country wench, uses the old word straw'd; but when the author speaks afterwards in the stage direction, he describes Marian as "strewing flowers." Shakespeare has o'er-strawed in "Venus and Adonis," perhaps for the sake of the rhyme.

[279] [i.e., Over.]

[280] [Old copy, of.]

[281] Formerly considered an antidote for poison. Sir Thomas Brown was not prepared to contradict it: he says, that "Lapis Lasuli hath in it a purgative faculty, we know: that Bezoar is antidotal, Lapis Judaicus diuretical, Coral antipileptical, we will not deny."—"Vulgar Errors," edit. 1658, p. 104. He also (p. 205) calls it the Bezoar nut, "for, being broken, it discovereth a kernel of a leguminous smell and taste, bitter, like a lupine, and will swell and sprout if set in the ground." Harts-horn shavings were also considered a preservative against poison.

[282] [From what follows presently it may be inferred that the king temporarily retires, although his exit or withdrawal is not marked.]

[283] The old word for convent: Covent-Garden, therefore, is still properly called.

[284] The grate of a vintner was no doubt what is often termed in old writers the red lattice, lettice, or chequers, painted at the doors of vintners, and still preserved at almost every public-house. See note 24 to "The Miseries of Enforced Marriage."

[285] The 4to reads—

"In the highway That joineth to the power."

[286] Robin Hood advises his uncle to insist upon his plea of privilegium clericale, or benefit of clergy—

"Stand to your clergy, uncle; save your life."

"Originally the law was held that no man should be admitted to the privilege of clergy, but such as had the habitum et tonsuram clericalem. But in process of time a much wider and more comprehensive criterion was established; every one that could read (a mark of great learning in those days of ignorance and her sister superstition) being accounted a clerk or clericus, and allowed the benefit of clerkship, though neither initiated in holy orders, nor trimmed with the clerical tonsure."—Blackstone's "Com.," iv. b. iv, ch. 28. We have already seen that the king and nobles in this play called in the aid of Friar Tuck to read the inscription on the stag's collar, though the king could ascertain that it was in Saxon characters.

[287] This account of the death of Robin Hood varies from all the popular narratives and ballads. The MS. Sloan, 715, nu. 7, f. 157, agrees with the ballad in Ritson, ii. 183, that he was treacherously bled to death by the Prioress of Kirksley.

[288] The first act has already occupied too much space, but it was difficult to divide it: in fact, as Friar Tuck says, it is a "short play," complete in itself. What follows is an induction to the rest of the story, the Friar continuing on the stage after the others have gone out.

[289] The 4to. reads thus—

"Apollo's master doone I invocate,"

but probably we ought to read—

"Apollo's masterdom I invocate,"

and the text has been altered accordingly. Masterdom means power, rule; to invocate Apollo's masterdom is therefore to invocate Apollo's power to assist the Friar in his undertaking.

[290] Enter in black is the whole of the stage direction, and those who enter are afterwards designated by the letters Cho. Perhaps the principal performers arrive attired in black, and are mentioned as Chorus, one speaking for the rest. Cho. may, however, be a misprint for Chester, who was sent in to "attire him."

[291] [In the new edit. of Nares the present passage is cited for ill-part, which is queried to mean ill-conditioned. Perhaps it is equivalent to malapert.]

[292] [Old copy, de Brun.] "John married Isabel, the daughter and heiress of the Earl of Angoulesme, who was before affianced to Hugh le Brun, Earl of March (a peer of great estate and excellence in France), by the consent of King Richard, in whose custody she then was." —Daniel's "History of England."

[293] [Old copy, lose.]

[294] Led by the F.K. and L. means, as afterwards appears, the French king, and Lord Hugh le Brun, Earl of North March.

[295] The entrance of Bonville is omitted in the 4to.

[296] These Lords, as we afterwards find, are old Aubrey de Vere, Hubert, and Mowbray.

[297] [Old copy, troops.]

[298] [Old copy, triumphs.]

[299] Lodge was in the habit of using the adjective for the substantive, especially fair for fairness; one example is enough—

"Some, well I wot, and of that sum full many, Wisht or my faire or their desire were lesse." —Scilla's Metamorphosis, 1589.

See also note to "The Wounds of Civil War" (vol. vii. p. 118).

Shakespeare may be cited in many places besides the following—

"My decayed fair A sunny look of his would soon repair." —Comedy of Errors, act ii. sc. 1.

See Steevens's note on the above passage.

[300] The King calls him in the old copy good Oxford, but Oxford is not present, and from what follows we see that the command was given to Salisbury. The same mistake is again made by Hubert in this scene. Salisbury must be pronounced Sal'sb'ry.

[301] [Accepted.]

[302] [Old copy, muddy.]

[303] [A very unusual phrase, which seems to be used here in the sense of masculine passions or properties.]

[304] In the old copy it stands thus—

"Yes, but I do: I think not Isabel, Lord, The worse for any writing of Brunes."

[In the MS. both Lord and Le were probably abbreviated into L., and hence the misprint, as well as misplacement, in the first line.]

[305] [i.e., You may count on her wealth as yours. We now say to build on, but to build of was formerly not unusual.]

[306] See the notes of Dr Johnson, Steevens, and other commentators on the words in the "Comedy of Errors," act ii. sc. 1—"Poor I am but his stale." [See also Dyce's "Shakespeare Glossary," 1868, in v.]

[307] The stage directions are often given very confusedly, and (taken by themselves) unintelligibly, in the old copy, of which this instance may serve as a specimen: it stands thus in the 4to—"Enter Fitzwater and his son Bruce, and call forth his daughter."

[308] [A feeder of the Wye. Lewis's "Book of English Rivers," 1855, p. 212.]

[309] Alluding most likely to the "Andria" of Terence, which had been translated [thrice] before this play was acted; the first time [in 1497, again about 1510, and the third time] by Maurice Kiffin in 1588. [The former two versions were anonymous. See Hazlitt's "Handbook," p. 605.]

[310] Holidom or halidom, according to Minsheu (Dict. 1617), is "an old word used by old country-women, by manner of swearing by my halidome; of the Saxon word haligdome, ex halig, sanctum, and dome, dominium aut judicium." Shakespeare puts it into the mouth of the host in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," act iv. sc. 2.

[311] The entrance of Richmond clearly takes place here, but in the 4to he is said to come in with Leicester.

[312] [See Hazlitt's "Proverbs," p. 22.]

[313] [In the 4to and former editions this and the following nine words are given to Richmond.]

[314] Meaning that her father Fitzwater [takes her, she having declined to pair off with the king.] The whole account of the mask is confused in the old copy, and it is not easy to make it much more intelligible in the reprint.

[315] [The proverb is: "There are more maids than Malkin." See Hazlitt's "Proverbs," p. 392.]

[316] [Old copy, Had.]

[317] This line will remind the reader of Shakespeare's "multitudinous seas incarnardine," in "Macbeth," act ii. sc. 1.

[318] This answer unquestionably belongs to the king, and is not, as the 4to gives it, a part of what Leicester says. It opens with an allusion to the crest of Leicester, similar to that noticed in the "Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington."

[319] [Old copy, by God's.]

[320] [Old copy, armed men.]

[321] [Old copy, shall.]

[322] [An allusion to the proverb.]

[323] This and other passages refer probably to the old play of "King John," printed in 1591, [or to Shakespeare's own play which, though not printed till 1623, must have been familiar to the public, and more especially to dramatic authors.]

[324] In this line; in the old copy, Salisbury is made to call himself Oxford.

[325] The 4to reads Enter or above Hugh, Winchester. Enter or above means, that they may either enter on the stage, or stand above on the battlements, as may suit the theatre. With regard to the names Hugh and Winchester, they are both wrong; they ought to be Hubert and Chester, who have been left by the king to keep good watch. When, too, afterwards Chester asks—

"What, Richmond, will you prove a runaway?"—

the answer in the old copy is—

"From thee, good Winchester? now, the Lord defend!"

It ought to be—

"From thee, good Chester? now the Lord defend!"

And it is clear that the measure requires it. The names throughout are very incorrectly given, and probably the printer composed from a copy in which some alterations had been made in the dramatis personae, but incompletely. Hence the perpetual confusion of Salisbury and Oxford.

[326] The scene changes from the outside to the inside of the castle.

[327] [Without muscle, though muscle and bristle are strictly distinct.]

[328] To tire is a term in falconry: from the Fr. tirer, in reference to birds of prey tearing what they take to pieces.

[329] The 4to prints Ilinnus.

[330] [Old copy, a deed.]

[331] The 4to has it Elinor, but it ought to be Isabel. The previous entrance of the Queen and Matilda is not marked.

[332] [Fairness, in which sense the word has already occurred in this piece.]

[333] [i.e., Champion.]

[334] Matilda's name is omitted in the old copy, but the errors of this kind are too numerous to be always pointed out.

[335] [Old copy, Triumvirates.]

[336] Nothing can more clearly show the desperate confusion of names in this play than this line, which in the 4to stands—

"It's Lord Hugh Burgh alone: Hughberr, what newes?"

In many places Hubert is only called Hugh.

[337] Company or collection.

[338] Head of hungry wolves is the reading of the original copy: a "herd" of hungry wolves would scarcely be proper, but it may have been so written. [Head may be right, and we have not altered it, as the word is occasionally used to signify a gathering or force.]

[339] In the old copy the four following lines are given to King John.

[340] [Old copy, warres.]

[341] [Escutcheon.]

[342] [Abided.]

[343] [Old copy, prepare.]

[344] This word is found in "Henry VI., Part II." act v. sc. 1, where young Clifford applies it to Richard. Malone observes in a note, that, according to Bullokar's "English Expositor," 1616, stugmatick originally and properly signified "a person who has been branded with a hot iron for some crime." The name of the man to whom Hubert here applies the word, is Brand.

Webster, in his "Vittoria Corombona," applies the term metaphorically:—

"The god of melancholy turn thy gall to poison, And let the stigmatic wrinkles in thy face. Like to the boisterous wares in a rough tide, One still overtake another."

[345] [Are faulty.]

[346] [Old copy, seld.]

[347] [The printer has made havoc with the sense here, which can only be guessed at from the context. Perhaps for go we should read God, in allusion to the woman's protestations. Yet even then the passage reads but lamely.]

[348] [These may be right; but perhaps the author wrote his. By his—i.e., God's—nails, is a very common oath.]

[349] [i.e., Mete or measure out a reward to her.]

[350] [To swear by the fingers, or the ten commandments, as they were often called, was a frequent oath.]

[351] [Old copy, lamback'd.]

[352] The 4to says, between the monk and the nun.

[353] [Query, mother Bawd; or is some celebrated procuress of the time when this play was written and acted meant here?]

[354] To swear by the cross of the sword was a very common practice, and many instances are to be found in D.O.P. See also notes to "Hamlet," act i. sc. 5.

[355] i.e., Secretly, a very common application of the word in our old writers.

[356] [In allusion to the proverb, "Maids say nay, and take."]

[357] Here, according to what follows, Brand steps forward and addresses Matilda. Hitherto he has spoken aside.

[358] See Mr Gilford's note on the words rouse and carouse in his Massinger, i. 239. It would perhaps be difficult, and certainly needless, to add anything to it.

[359] "Nor I to stir before I see the end,"

belongs to the queen, unquestionably, but the 4to gives it to the Abbess, who has already gone out.

[360] [Labour, pain.]

[361] The reading of the old copy is—

"Oh pity, mourning sight! age pitiless!"

Pity-moving in a common epithet, and we find it afterwards in this play used by young Bruce—

"My tears, my prayers, my pity-moving moans."

[362] [Old copy, wrath.]

[363] This servant entered probably just before Oxford's question, but his entrance is not marked.

[364] To pash, signifies to crush or dash to pieces. So in the "Virgin Martyr," act ii. sc. 2—

"With Jove's artillery, shot down at once, To pash your gods in pieces."

See Mr Gifford's note upon this passage, and Reed's note on the same word in "Troilus and Cressida," act ii. sc. 3.

[365] The 4^o has it—

"May an example of it, honest friends;"

but make is certainly the true reading.

[366] Bannings are cursings. Hundreds of examples might be added to those collected by Steevens in a note to "King Lear," act ii. sc. 3. It is a singular coincidence that ban, signifying a curse, and ban, a public notice of marriage, should have the same origin.

[367] The words, at one door, are necessary to make the stage direction intelligible, but they are not found in the original.

[368] [Here used apparently in the unusual sense of scene.]

[369] This line is quoted by Steevens in a note to "Measure for Measure," act v. sc. 1, to prove that the meaning of refel is refute.

[370] Sir William Blunt's entrance is not marked in the old copy.

[371] To blin is to cease, and in this sense it is met with in Spenser and other poets. Mr Todd informs us that it is still in use in the north of England. Ben Jonson, in his "Sad Shepherd," converts the verb into a substantive, "withouten blin."

[372] Powder'd is the old word for salted: it is in this sense Shakespeare makes Falstaff use it, when he says: "If you embowel me to-day, I'll give you leave to powder me and eat me to-morrow."

[373] i.e., l'ouvert or opening—

"Ne lightned was with window nor with lover, But with continuall candle-light."

—Spenser's "Faerie Queene," b. vi. c. x.

[374] The sense is incomplete here: perhaps a line has been lost, or Leicester suddenly recollects that Bruce has possession of Windsor Castle, and warns him not to relinquish it.

[375] An abridgment of Hubert, apparently for the sake of the metre.

[376] [i.e., Spleen, indignation.]

[377] In this line there is, in the old copy, a curious and obvious misprint: it stands in the 4^o—

"She was indeed of London the honour once."

Instead of—

"She was indeed of love the honour once."

The king is translating and commenting on the motto on the pendant, as is quite evident from the manner in which he proceeds. Besides, the measure requires a word of one syllable.

[378] [Old copy, in life.]

[379] The lords again stand in council as before, while the king fills up the interval to the audience.

[380] This is probably addressed to the king, with whom Oxford has been talking.

[381] [Pox].

[382] [Old copy, had.]

[383] [Old copy, hath.]

[384] [The inn, mentioned in the former scene, must be supposed to remain, as Tenacity presently goes up to it, and knocks at the gate.]

[385] [Fired?]

[386] [Old copy, than.]

[387] [Wretches.]

[388] [Old copy, Yoo.]

[389] [Old copy. That.]

[390] [Dance.]

[391] [Then.]

[392] [Paltrily.]

[393] A term of contempt for a woman. The hostess has entered the kitchen of the inn in the cook's absence, and finds matters not quite satisfactory.

[394] Old copy adds, and Dandelyne; but it is evident from the close of the preceding scene, that the Hostess does not quit the stage.

[395] See Halliwell in v.; but the explanation there given hardly suits the present context, where the word appears to be used in the sense of a term, a period.

[396] Apparently part of the song; its meaning is not clear.

[397] [Reward].

[398] [Pet.]

[399] [Welcome.]

[400] [This is one of the elegant terms which are exchanged between Gammer Gurton and Mother Chat.]

[401] [Although Tom is marked in the old copy as entering at the commencement of the scene, be does not really come in till now.]

[402] [Old copy adds, and Fortune; but Fortune does not enter now: she is in her castle, and presently calls to Vanity from a window.]

[403] [Although it appears from what immediately follows that Vanity had assembled Fortune's vassals, we are not necessarily to conclude that the latter enter here. They would rather wait outside.]

[404] [Bull-calf.]

[405] [Orig. reads, fat fatox.]

[406] [This seems merely a word coined for the sake of the rhyme.]

[407] [Of courtesy.]

[408] [Swoon.]

[409] [Old copy, net.]

[410] [Old copy, to emloy.]

[411] [In the old copy this direction is given (very imperfectly) thus: The constables make hue and cry.]

[412] [In the old copy this passage is thus exhibited—

HOST. Where dwell these constables?

CON. Why? what's the matter, friend, I pray?

HOST. Why, thieves, man, I tell thee, come away. Thieves, i' faith, wife, my scull, my Iacke, my browne bill.

CON. Come away quickly.

HOST. Dick, Tom, Will, ye hoorsons, make ye all ready and haste. But let me heare, how stands the case? [A pace after.

Where the confusion in the distribution of the speeches seems tolerably evident. The constable made hue and cry, in order to raise the country, and make a levy of such persons as were bound to assist.

[413] [Old copy, to.]

[414] [Old copy, fasting.]

[415] [Old copy, Yes.]

[416] [Petition.]

[417] [Then, probably, as it certainly was later on, a favourite haunt of footpads.]

[418] [Pancras.]

[419] [No edition except that of 1662 has yet come to light.]

[420] Nobody who reads this play can doubt that it is much older than 1662, the date borne by the earliest known edition of it. It has every indication of antiquity, and the title not the least of these. "Grim, the Collier of Croydon," is a person who plays a prominent character in the humorous portion of Edwards's "Damon and Pithias," which was printed in 1571, and acted several years earlier. The Grim of the present play is obviously the same person as the Grim of "Damon and Pithias," and in both he is said to be "Collier for the king's own Majesty's mouth." Chetwood may therefore be right when he states that it was printed in 1599; but perhaps that was not the first edition, and the play was probably acted before "Damon and Pithias" had gone quite out of memory. In the office-book of the Master of the Revels, under date of 1576, we find a dramatic entertainment entered, called "The Historie of the Colyer," acted by the Earl of Leicester's men; but it was doubtless Ulpian Fulwell's "Like will to Like, quod the Devil to the Colier," printed in 1568. The structure, phraseology, versification, and language of "Grim, the Collier of Croydon," are sufficient to show that it was written before 1600: another instance to prove how much the arrangement of the plays made by Mr Reed was calculated to mislead. Some slight separate proofs of the age of this piece are pointed out in the new notes; but the general evidence is much more convincing. The versification is interlarded with rhymes like nearly all our earlier plays, and the blank verse is such as was written before Marlowe's improvements had generally been adopted. When the play was reprinted in 1662, some parts of it were perhaps a little modernised. The introduction of Malbecco and Paridell into it, from Spenser's "Faerie Queene," may be some guide as to the period when the comedy was first produced.—Collier. [The play has now, for the first time, been placed in its true chronological rank.]

[421] See note to "Gammer Gurton's Needle" [iii. 245].

[422] The story of this play is taken in part from Machiavel's "Belphegor."—Pegge.

The excellent translation of this humorous old story by Mr T. Roscoe ("Italian Novelists," ii. 272) will enable the reader to compare the play with it. He will find that in many parts the original has been abandoned, and the catastrophe, if not entirely different, is brought about by different means. The "Biographia Dramatica" informs us that Dekker's "If it be not Good the Devil is in it" is also chiefly taken from the same novel; but this is an error arising out of a hint by Langbaine. Dekker's play is the famous history of Friar Rush in many of its incidents.—Collier.

[423] [He was born at or near Glastonbury in 925. See Wright's "Biog. Brit. Lit.," Anglo-Saxon period, p. 443, et seq.]

[424] "Legenda Aurea, or the Golden Legend," translated out of the French, and printed by Caxton in folio, 1483.

[425] In the old copy it is printed Tortass, but it means portass, portesse, or portace, the breviary of the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, in Greene's "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay"—

"I'll take my portace forth, and wed you here."

Spenser uses the word, "Faerie Queene," b. i. c. iv.—

"And in his hand his portesse still he bare That much was worne," &c.

See also note to "New Custom" [iii. 24].—Collier.

[426] [Old copy and former edits., Dunston's.]

[427] See the story of Malbecco in Spenser's "Faerie Queene," b. iii. c. ix., &c.

[428] The old copy has it reap, but probably we ought to read heap; to reap an endless catalogue is hardly sense.—Collier.

[429] Cleped is called, named. So in Milton's "L'Allegro," i. 11—

"But come, thou goddess fair and free, In heaven yclep'd Euphrosyne."

[430] Colling is embracing round the neck. Dare Brachia cervici, as Baret explains it in his "Alvearie," voce colle. The word is frequently to be found in ancient writers. So in Erasmus' "Praise of Follie," 1549, sig. B 2: "For els, what is it in younge babes that we dooe kysse go, we doe colle so; we do cheryshe so, that a very enemie is moved to spare and succour this age." In "Wily Beguiled," 1606: "I'll clasp thee, and clip thee; coll thee, and kiss thee, till I be better than nought, and worse than nothing." In "The Witch," by Middleton—

"When hundred leagues in aire we feast and sing, Daunce, kysse, and coll, use everything."

And in Breton's "Woorkes of a Young Wit," 1577, p. 37—

"Then for God's sake, let young folkes coll and kisse, When oldest folkes will thinke it not amisse."

[431] Old copy, upon.

[432] So in Ben Jonson's "Catiline," act iv. sc. 3—

"I have those eyes and ears shall still keep guard And spial on thee, as they've ever done, And thou not feel it."

And in Ascham's "Report and Discourse of the State of Germany," p. 31: "He went into France secretly, and was there with Shirtly as a common launce knight, and named hymselfe Captaine Paul, lest the Emperours spials should get out hys doynges."

[433] In the county of Essex, the mother-church of Harwich. "In the same yeare of our Lord 1582 there was an Idoll named The Roode of Dovercourt, whereunto was much and great resort of people. For at that time there was a great rumour blown abroad amongst the ignorant sort, that the power of The Idoll of Dovercourt was so great that no man had power to shut the church doore where he stood, and therefore they let the church dore, both night and day, continually stand open, for the more credit unto the blinde rumour."—Fox's "Martyrs," ii. 302. This is the account given by Fox of this celebrated image; who adds that four men, determining to destroy it, travelled ten miles from Dedham, where they resided, took away the Rood and burnt it, for which act three of them afterwards suffered death.

[434] Old copy, way.—Pegge.

[435] A play on the double meaning of the word, an old game and the act of kissing.

[436] [Obtain.]

[437] [Old copy, and former edits., bear.]

[438] See note to "Gammer Gurton's Needle" [ii. 202].

[439] In 1662, when this play was either first printed or reprinted, it would have been absurd to talk of America as new or newly discovered.—Collier.

[440] [This passage reminds us of No. 60 in "A C. Mery Talys," Hazlitt's "Jest Books," i. 87.]

[441] See note to "Damon and Pithias" [iv. 21].

[442] Old copy, work.—Pegge.

[443] i.e., O Lord.

[444] i.e., So happen in the issue. So in Ben Jonson's "New Inn," act iv. sc. 4—

"You knew well It could not sort with any reputation Of mine."

And in Massinger's "Maid of Honour," act ii. sc. 1—

"All sorts to my wishes."

[445] Old copy, for.—Pegge.

[446] i.e., As lief they as I. So in "Eastward Hoe:" "I'd as live as anything I could see his farewell."—Collier.

[447] It is observed by Dr Warburton (note on "Romeo and Juliet," act i. sc. 1), that to carry coals was a phrase formerly in use to signify bearing of injuries; and Dr Percy has given several instances in proof of it. To those may be added the following from Ben Jonson's "Every Man out of his Humour," act v. sc. 3: "Take heed, Sir Puntarvolo, what you do; he'll bear no coals, I can tell you, o' my word."

[448] i.e., Akercock, as he is called in the preceding scenes. See a later note to this play [p. 442 infra].—Collier.

[449] Suppose is here used in the sense of conjecture or apprehension. Gascoigne translated a comedy of Ariosto, and called it "The Supposes." The employment of the verb for the substantive in the present instance is an evidence of the antiquity of this play. The following parallel is from Gascoigne's Prologue: "The verye name wherof may peraduenture driue into euerie of your heades, a sundrie Suppose, to suppose the meaning of our supposes."—Collier.

[450] i.e., Plot or contrivance. Tarlton produced a piece called "The Plat-form of the Seven Deadly Sins;" and in "Sir J. Oldcastle," by Drayton and others, first printed in 1600, it is used with the same meaning as in the text, viz., a contrivance for giving effect to the conspiracy.

"There is the plat-form, and their hands, my lord, Each severally subscribed to the same."

—Collier.

[451] [A common proverb.]

[452] [The ordinary proverb is, "The devil is good when he is pleased."]

[453] The Italian for How do you do?

[454] Skinker was a tapster or drawer. Prince Henry, in "The First Part of Henry IV." act ii. sc. 4, speaks of an underskinker, meaning an underdrawer. Mr Steevens says it is derived from the Dutch word schenken, which signifies to fill a cup or glass. So in G. Fletcher's "Russe Commonwealth," 1591, p. 13, speaking of a town built on the south side of Moscow by Basilius the emperor, for a garrison of soldiers, "to whom he gave priviledge to drinke mead and beer, at the drye or prohibited times, when other Russes may drinke nothing but water, and for that cause called this newe citie by the name of Naloi, that is, skinck, or poure in." Again, in Marston's "Sophonisba," iii. 2—

"Ore whelme me not with sweets, let me not drink, Till my breast burst, O Jove, thy nectar skinke."

And in Ben Jonson's "Poetaster," act iv. sc. 5—

"ALB. I'll ply the table with nectar, and make 'em friends.

"HER. Heaven is like to have but a lame skinker."

And in his "Bartholomew Fair," act ii. sc. 2: "Froth your cans well i' the filling, at length, rogue, and jog your bottles o' the buttock, sirrah; then skink out the first glass ever, and drink with all companies."

[455] Suspicion.

[456] [Be in accord with reason.]

[457] [Old copy, call'st.]

[458] Similar to this description is one in Marlowe's "Edward II.," act i.

[459] Old copy, are.

[460] [Old copy, knew.]

[461] See note to "Cornelia" [v. 188].

[462] In Shakespeare's "Coriolanus," Sicinius asks Volumnia, "Are you mankind?" On which Dr Johnson remarks that "a mankind woman is a woman with the roughness of a man; and, in an aggravated sense, a woman ferocious, violent, and eager to shed blood." Mr Upton says mankind means wicked. See his "Remarks on Ben Jonson," p. 92. The word is frequently used to signify masculine. So in [Beaumont and Fletcher's] "Love's Cure; or, The Martial Maid," act iv. sc. 2—

"From me all mankind women learn to woo."

In Dekker's "Satiromastix"—

"My wife's a woman; yet 'Tis more than I know yet, that know not her; If she should prove mankind, 'twere rare; fie! fie!"

And in Massinger's "City Madam," act ii. sc. 1—

"You brach, Are you turn'd mankind?"

[463] [Old copy, strumpets.]

[464] Whether I will or not. This mode of expression is often found in contemporary writers. So in Dekker's "Bel-man of London," sig. F 3: "Can by no meanes bee brought to remember this new friend, yet will hee, nill he, to the taverne he sweares to have him."

It may be worth remark that it is also found in "Damon and Pithias," from which the character of Grim is taken.

[465] [Old copy, reake.]

[466] Sometimes called Pucke, alias Hobgoblin. In the creed of ancient superstition he was a kind of merry sprite, whose character and achievements are recorded in a ballad printed in Dr Percy's "Reliques of Ancient Poetry." [See "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," iii. 39, et seq.]

[467] Pretty or clever. So in Warner's "Albion's England," b. vi. c. 31, edit. 1601—

"There was a tricksie girl, I wot, albeit clad in gray."

The word is also used in Shakespeare's "Tempest," act v. sc. 1. See Mr Steevens's note thereon.

[468] This is one of the most common, and one of the oldest, proverbs in English. Ulpian Fulwell['s play upon it has been printed in our third volume.] It is often met with in our old writers, and among others, in a translation from the French, printed in 1595, called, "A pleasant Satyre or Poesie, wherein is discovered the Catholicon of Spain," &c., the running title being "A Satyre Menippized." It is to be found on pp. 54 and 185. Having mentioned this tract, we may quote, as a curiosity, the following lines, which probably are the original of a passage for which "Hudibras" is usually cited as the authority—

"Oft he that doth abide Is cause of his own paine; But he that flieth in good tide Perhaps may fight againe."

—Collier.

[469] [A word unnoticed by Nares and Halliwell. The latter cites haust, high, doubtless from the French haut. So hauster may be the comparative, and signify higher.]

[470] Till now printed Puzzles as if because it had puzzled Dodsley and Reed to make out the true word. In the old copy it stands Puriles; and although it may seem a little out of character for Grim to quote Latin, yet he does so in common with the farmer in Peele's "Edward I.," and from the very same great authority. "'Tis an old saying, I remember I read it in Cato's 'Pueriles' that Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator," &c.—Collier. [The work referred to in the text was called "Pueriles Confabulatiunculae; or, Children's Talke," of which no early edition is at present known. But it is mentioned in "Pappe with an Hatchet" (1589), and in the inventory of the stock of John Foster, the York bookseller (1616).]

THE END