A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) - Various
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[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."