A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Viii Part 98

[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 "s.h.i.+p 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, _G.o.d'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 Ma.s.singer'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 ent.i.tle 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 pa.s.sage 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 "Alb.u.mazar"--

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

and in many other places.