The Works of Aphra Behn Volume Iii Part 142

p. 424, l. 3 _Doct. Hold up_. 1724 improperly puts this speech after the stage direction.

p. 424, l. 8 _Harlequin sits still_. 4tos 'He sits still.'

p. 426, ll. 7, 9 _Mistriss_. 1724 'Mrs.'

p. 426, l. 35 _Aside, and Exit_. 'Aside' only in 1724. I have supplied 'and exit.'

p. 427, l. 16 _Scene IV_. I have numbered this scene and supplied the locale 'to Bellemante's Chamber'.

p. 429, l. 6 _Scene V_. I have numbered this scene.

p. 436, l. 14 _The End of the Second Act_. Only in 4tos.

p. 438, l. 22 _Scene II_. I have numbered this scene.

p. 442, l. 5 _prima_. 4tos misprint 'Fema'.

p. 453, l. 1 _Scene III. The Last_. I have numbered this scene. 1724 omits 'The Last.'

p. 454, l. 3 _the Emperor_. 1724 omits 'the'.

p. 456, l. 28 _Sagittary_. 1724 'Sagittar'.

p. 461, l. 32 _Gravely to himself_. Only in 4tos.

p. 462, l. 19 _Pay_. 1724 'Play.'

p. 462, l. 29 _Bank_. 1724 'Rank'.

NOTES: CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY.

THE TOWN FOP.

p. 15 _Mrs. Celinda Dresswell_. Dresswell was obviously the original name of Friendlove, and Mrs. Behn forgot to alter her MS. at this pa.s.sage. The same oversight occurs later in the act when Bellmour says 'I must rely on Dresswell's friends.h.i.+p,' (p. 20).

p. 18 _Gla.s.s Coach_. Coaches with gla.s.ses were a recent invention and very fas.h.i.+onable amongst the courtiers and ladies of the Restoration. De Grammont tells in his _Memoirs_ how he presented a French calash with gla.s.ses to the King, and how, after the Queen and the d.u.c.h.ess of York, had publicly appeared in it, a battle royal took place between Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stewart as to which of the two should first be seen therein on a fine day in Hyde Park. _The Ultimum Vale of John Carleton_ (4to, 1663) says, 'I could wish her coach ... made of the new fas.h.i.+on, with gla.s.s, very stately, ... was come for me.'

p. 20 _Tom Dove_. A well-known bear so named and exhibited at the Bear Garden. Besides this pa.s.sage there are four other allusions to him to be found. Dryden's _Epilogue to the King and Queen_ at the Union of the Two Companies, 1682, has:--

Then for your lacquies ...

They roar so loud, you'd think behind the stairs, Tom Dove, and all the brotherhood of bears.

His prologue to Vanbrugh's alteration of _The Pilgrim_ (1700) begins:--

How wretched is the fate of those who write!

Brought muzzled to the stage, for fear they bite; Where, like Tom Dove, they stand the common foe.

In Southerne's _The Maid's Last Prayer_ (1693) Act ii, II, Granger on receiving an invitation to dinner cries: 'Zounds! a man had as good be ty'd to a stake and baited like Tom Dove on Easter Monday as be the necessary appurtenance of a great man's table!' D'Urfey in the epilogue (spoken by Verbruggen) to Robert Gould's _The Rival Sisters; or, The Violence of Love_, produced at Drury Lane in 1696, writes:--

When the dull Crowd, unskilled in these Affairs, To day wou'd laugh with us, to morrow with the Bears: Careless which Pastime did most Witty prove, Or who pleas'd best, Tom Poet, or Tom Dove.

Tom Dove has been wrongly described as 'a bearward.'

p. 22 _Southampton House_. Southampton House, Bloomsbury, occupied the whole of the north side of the present Bloomsbury Square. It had 'a curious garden behind, which lieth open to the fields,'--_Strype_. A great rendezvous for duellists, cf. Epilogue to Mountfort's _Greenwich Park_ (Drury Lane, 1691) spoken by Mrs. Mountfort:--

If you're displeased with what you've seen to-night Behind Southampton House we'll do you right; Who is't dares draw 'gainst me and Mrs. Knight?

p. 39 _Nickers_. Vide note (p. 456) Vol. I, p. 398, _The Roundheads_.

p. 41 _Courant_. A quick, lively dance frequently referred to in old dramatists.

p. 43 _A Jigg_. There were, in Post-Restoration times, two interpretations of the word Jig. Commonly speaking it was taken to mean exactly what it would now, a simple dance. Nell Gwynne and Moll Davis were noted for the dancing of Jigs. cf. Epilogue to Buckingham's _The Chances_ (1682):--

The Author dreads the strut and meen Of new prais'd Poets, having often seen Some of his Fellows, who have writ before, When Nel has danc'd her Jig, steal to the Door, Hear the Pit clap, and with conceit of that Swell, and believe themselves the Lord knows what.

Thus at the end of Lacy's _The Old Troop_ (31 July, 1668), we have 'a dance of two hobby horses in armour, and a Jig.' Also shortly before the epilogue in Shadwell's _The Sullen Lovers_ (1668) we read, 'Enter a Boy in the habit of Pugenello and traverses the stage, takes his chair and sits down, then dances a Jig.'

But it must be remembered that beside the common meaning there was a gloss upon the word derived from Elizabethan stage practice. In the prologue to _The Fair Maid of the Inn_ (licensed 1626), good plays are spoken of as often scurvily treated, whilst

A Jigge shall be clapt at, and every rhime Prais'd and applauded by a clam'rous chyme.

The Pre-Restoration Jig was little other indeed than a ballad opera in embryo lasting about twenty-five minutes and given as an after-piece. It was a rhymed farce in which the dialogue was sung or chanted by the characters to popular ballad tunes. But after the Restoration the Jig a.s.sumed a new and more serious complexion, and came eventually to be dovetailed with the play itself, instead of being given at the f.a.g end of the entertainment. Mr. W.J. Lawrence, the well-known theatrical authority to whom I owe much valuable information contained in this note, would (doubtless correctly) attribute the innovation to Stapylton and Edward Howard, both of whom dealt pretty freely in these Jigs.

Stapylton has in Act v of _The Slighted Maid_ (1663) a 'Song in Dialogue' between Aurora and Phoebus with a chorus of Cyclops, which met with some terrible parody in _The Rehearsal_ (cf. the present editor's edition of _The Rehearsal_, p. 145). Indeed all extrinsic songs in dialogue, however serious the theme, were considered 'Jigs'. A striking example would be the Song of the Spirits in Dryden's _Tyrannic Love_, Act iv.

In Post-Restoration days a ballad sung in the streets by two persons was frequently called a Jig, presumably because it was a 'song in dialogue'.

Numerous examples are to be found amongst the Roxburgh Ballads.

The Jig introduced in _Sir Timothy Tawdrey_ would seem to have been the simple dance although not improbably an epithalamium was also sung.

p. 44 _an Entry_. A dance which derived its name from being performed at that point in a masque when new actors appeared. In Crowne's _The Country Wit_ (1675) Act iii, I, there is a rather stupid play on this sense of the word confounded with its meaning 'a hall or lobby'.

p. 63 _Cracking_. Prost.i.tution. A rare substantive, although 'Crack', whence it is derived, was common, cf. p. 93 and note.

p. 65 _Cater-tray_. cater = quatre. The numbers four and three on dice or cards. This term was used generally as a cant name for dice; often for cogged or loaded dice.

p. 69 _She cries Wh.o.r.e first_. In allusion to the old proverb--cf. _The Feign'd Courtezans_, Act v, iv, Vol. II, p. 409, when Mr. Tickletext on his discovery appeals to the same saw.

p. 81 _Berjere_. A very favourite word with Mrs. Behn. Vide Vol. II, note (p. 346, _The hour of the Berjere_), p. 441 _The Feigned Courtezans_.

p. 93 _Cracks_. Wh.o.r.es. As early as 1678 'Crack' is the proper name of a wh.o.r.e in _Tunbridge Wells_, an anonymous comedy played at the Duke's House, cf. D'Urfey, _Madam Fickle_ (1682), Act v, ii, when Flaile says: 'Y'have killed a Mon yonder, He that you quarrell'd with about your Crack there.' Farquhar, _Love and a Bottle_ (1698), Act v, ii, has: 'You imagine I have got your wh.o.r.e, cousin, your crack.' Grose, _Dict. Vulgar Tongue_, gives the word, and it is also explained by the _Lexicon Balatronic.u.m_ (1811). It was, in fact, in common use for over an hundred years.

p. 94 _Mr. E.R_. i.e. Edward Ravenscroft.