A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume I Part 90

415. _Prycke_, 1st edit.

416. _They be_, edit. 1569.

417. _Wood_ signifies _mad, furious_, or _violent_. So, in Aseham's "Toxophilus" [1545, repr. Arber, p. 56], "Howe will you thinke that such furiousness, with _woode_ countenaunce and brenning eyes, with staringe and bragging, with heart redie to leape out of the belly for swelling, can be expressed ye tenth part to the vttermost" (Churchyard's "Worthiness of Wales," p. 103, Evans's edit., 1776).

"It flowes with winde, although no rayne there bee.

And swelles like sea, with waves and foming flood: A wonder sure to see this river Dee, With winde alone, to wax so wild and _wood_, Make such a sturre, as water would be mad, And shewe such life, as though some spreete it had."

418. _Swere_, edit. 1569.

419. _Wyl_, edit. 1569. Neither edition reads _wyl_, nor _wil_, but _wolde.--Collier_.

420. The oldest copy has it "as _nyche_ as ye wyll," and the edition of 1569, "as nie as ye wilt;" perhaps the meaning is "as _much_ as you will."--Collier. [More probably _nice_, which word seems to have borne a somewhat different p.r.o.nunciation formerly. Compare a pa.s.sage in Ingelend's "Disobedient Child"--

"Even as to a greate man, wealthy and ryche, Service and bondage is a harde thynge, So to a boye, both dayntie and _nyce_,"

where _nyce_ must be p.r.o.nounced _nyche_, though not so spelled.]

421. _Fall_, 1st edit.

422. Pay down.

423. Ready; _pret_, Fr. So in "Caesar and Pompey," 1607:

"What must be; Caesar's _prest_ for all."

See a note on "The Merchant of Venice," A. 1, S. 1.--_S_. Again Churchyard's "Challenge," 1593, p. 80--

"Then shall my mouth, my muse, my pen, and all, Be _prest_ to serve at each good subject's call."

Cynthia's "Revels," A. 5, S. 4--

"I am _prest_ for the encounter."

424. The reckoning. See Mr Steevens's note to "The First Part of King Henry IV.," A. 5, S. 3.

Again, in Churchyard's "Worthiness of Wales"--

"Behold besides, a further thing to note, The best cheap cheare they have that may be found; The _shot_ is great when each man pais his groate, If all alike the reckoning runneth round."

425. The third edition reads _swynking_. See note 26 to "Gammer Qurton's Needle," vol. ii.

426. In Sir John Hawkins's "History of Musick," vol. iii., p. 466, a pa.s.sage, in Tusser's "Five Hundred Points of Husbandry," 1580, is cited, in which this line occurs--

"The better _brest_, the lesser rest;"

upon which he makes this observation: "In singing the Bound is originally produced by the action of the lungs, which are so essential an organ in this respect, that to have a good _breast_ was formerly a common periphrasis to denote a good singer. The Italians make use of the terms _Voce di Petto_ and _Voce di Testa_ to signify two kinds of voice, of which the first is the best. In Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night,' after the clown is asked to sing, Sir Andrew Aguecheek says--

'By my troth, the fool hath an excellent _breast_'

And in the statutes of Stoke College, in Suffolk, founded by Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, is a provision in these words: 'Of which said queristers, after their _b.r.e.a.s.t.s_ are changed (i.e., their voices broke), we will the most apt of wit and capacity be holpen with exhibitions of forty s.h.i.+llings,'" &c.

See also the notes of Mr Warton and Mr Steevens to "Twelfth Night," A. 2, S. 3.

Again, in Middleton's "More Dissemblers besides Women," A. 1, S. 3 (Dyce's edit, iii., 575), Dondolo, after a song by his page, says, "Oh rich, ravis.h.i.+ng, rare, and inticing. Well, go thy ways, for as _sweet a brested_ page as ever lay at his master's feet in a truckle-bed." And in the same writer's "Women beware Women," A. 3, S. 2--

_Duke_. "Yea the voice too, sir?"

_Fab_. "Ay, and a _sweet breast_ too, my lord, I hope, Or I have cast away my money wisely."

--Dyce's edit, iv., 583.

Yet in the very next line of the text the Pedlar seems to take a distinction between the _breast_ and the _voice_, which induces the Apothecary to observe--

"That answere sheweth you a ryght syngynge man."--_Collier_.

427. _Wyt_, 1st edit.

428. _Wyll_, 1st edit.

429. See note 48 to "Gammer Gurton's Needle."

430. _Not and_, 1st edit.

431. Hitherto misprinted-- "Upon these _workes_ our mater grewe."--_Collier_.

432. _His_, edit. 1569.

433. _For_, edit. 1569.

434. _So_, edit. 1569

435. _May_, edit. 1569.

436. _Wake_, 1st edit.

437. _It is very_, edit. 1569.

438. Added in edit. 1569.

439. The first edition reads--

"And if _he_ lyste to take me so."

which is altered in the edit, of 1569, to _ye_, and it is probably right.--_Collier_.

440. _Should go on pilgrimage_, edit. 1569.

441. Original reads _debite_.

442. _Howe_, 1st edit.

443. _Were we as_, edit. 1569.