A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 125

[195] Auditus is here called _Ears_, as Tactus is before called _Deed_.--_Pegge_. [But see note at p. 349.]

[196] Circles. So in Milton--

"Throws his steep flight in many an airy wheel."

--_Steevens_.

[197] [It is _Mendacio_ who speaks.]

[198] Old copies, _Egyptian knights_. Dr Pegge's correction.

[199] [Edits., _I_.]

[200] [Edits., _safe_.]

[201] A pun; for he means _Male aeger_.--_Pegge_.

[202] The [first edit.] gives the pa.s.sage thus: _brandish no swords but sweards of bacon_, which is intended for a pun, and though bad enough, need not be lost.--_Collier_.

[203] _Glaves_ are swords, and sometimes partisans.--_Steevens_.

[204] Lat. for phalanxes.--_Steevens_.

[205] [Edits., _dept_.]

[206] Mars.

[207] See Note 2 to the "First Part of Jeronimo," [v. 349].

[208] [Edits., _kist_. The word _hist_ may be supposed to represent the whistling sound produced by a sword pa.s.sing rapidly through the air.]

[209] i.e., Exceeds bounds or belief. See a note on "The Merry Wives of Windsor," act iv. sc. 2.--_Steevens_.

[210] "_Graecia mendax_ Audet in historia."--_Steevens_.

[211] [His "History," which is divided into nine books, under the names of the nine Muses.]

[212] i.e., Whispered him. See note to "The Spanish Tragedy," [vi. 10.]

[213] [Peter Martyr's "Decades."]

[214] A luncheon before dinner. The farmers in Ess.e.x still use the word.--_Steevens_.

So in the "Woman-hater," by Beaumont and Fletcher, act i. sc. 3, Count Valore, describing Lazarillo, says--

"He is none of these Same Ordinary Eaters, that'll devour Three breakfasts, as many dinners, and without any Prejudice to their _Beavers_, drinkings, suppers; But he hath a more courtly kind of hunger.

And doth hunt more after novelty than plenty."

Baret, in his "Alvearic," 1580, explains _a boever_, a drinking betweene dinner and supper; and _a boer_, meate eaten after noone, a collation, a noone meale.

[215] See Note 19 to "The Ordinary."

[216] [In 1576 Ulpian Fulwell published "The First Part of the Eighth Liberal Science, Ent.i.tuled Ars Adulandi."]

[217] This word, which occurs in Ben Jonson and some other writers, seems to have the same meaning as our _numps_. I am ignorant of its etymology.--_Steevens_. [Compare Nares, 1859, in _v_.]

[218] i.e., Other requisites towards the fitting out of a character.

See a note on "Love's Labour Lost," vol. ii. p. 385, edit. 1778.

--_Steevens_.

[219] A busk-point was, I believe, the lace of a lady's stays. Minsheu explains a _buske_ to be a part of dress "made of wood or whalebone, a plated or quilted thing to keepe the body straight." The word, I am informed, is still in common use, particularly in the country among the farmers' daughters and servants, for a piece of wood to preserve the stays from being bent. _Points_ or laces were worn by both s.e.xes, and are frequently mentioned in our ancient dramatic writers.

[220] [Edits., _hu, hu_.]

[221] [i.e., Our modern _pet_, darling, a term of endearment.] Dr Johnson says that it is a word of endearment from _pet.i.t_, little. See notes on "The Taming of the Shrew," act i. sc. 1.

Again, in "The City Madam," by Ma.s.singer, act ii. sc. 2--

"You are _pretty peats_, and your great portions Add much unto your handsomeness."

[222] s.h.i.+rley, in his "Sisters," ridicules these hyperbolical compliments in a similar but a better strain--

"Were it not fine If you should see your mistress without hair, Drest only with those glittering beams you talk of?

Two suns instead of eyes, and they not melt The forehead made of snow! No cheeks, but two Roses inoculated on a lily, Between a pendant alabaster nose: Her lips cut out of coral, and no teeth But strings of pearl: her tongue a nightingale's!

Would not this strange chimera fright yourself?"

--_Collier_.

[223] [i.e., Doff it in salutation.]

[224] Alluding to the office of sheriff.

[225] "_Ca.s.sock_," says Mr Steevens, "signifies a horseman's loose coat, and is used in that sense by the writers of the age of Shakespeare. It likewise appears to have been part of the dress of rusticks." See note to "All's Well that Ends Well," act iv. sc. 3.

[226] "A _gimmal_ or _gimbal ring_, Fr. _gemeau_, utr. a Lat. Gemellus, q.d. Annulus Gemellus, quoniam, sc. duobus aut pluribus...o...b..bus constat."--_Skinner_.

_Gimmal rings_ are often mentioned in ancient writers.

[227] "Quis nescit primam esse Historiae legem, ne quid falsi dicere audeat; deinde, ne quid veri non audeat."--Cicero "De Orat." lib. ii. 15.

[228] This was called "The Clouds," in which piece Socrates was represented hanging up in a basket in the air, uttering numberless chimerical absurdities, and blaspheming, as it was then reputed, the G.o.ds of his country. At the performance of this piece Socrates was present himself; and "notwithstanding," says his biographer, "the gross abuse that was offered to his character, he did not show the least signs of resentment or anger; nay, such was the unparalleled good nature of this G.o.dlike man, that some strangers there, being desirous to see the original of this scenic picture, he rose up in the middle of the performance, stood all the rest of the time, and showed himself to the people; by which well-placed confidence in his own merit and innocence, reminding them of those virtues and wisdom so opposite to the sophist in the play, his pretended likeness, he detected the false circ.u.mstances, which were obtruded into his character, and obviated the malicious designs of the poet who, having brought his play a second time upon the stage, met with the contempt he justly merited for such a composition."

--Cooper's "Life of Socrates," p. 55.

[229] [Old copies, _page's tongue_; but Mendacio, Lingua's page, is intended. Perhaps we should read _Tongues.h.i.+p's page_.]

[230] [This is marked in the editions as the opening of a new scene, but wrongly, as it should seem, as the same persons remain on the stage, and the conversation is a sequel to what has gone before.]

[231] These were the names of several species of hawks. See an account of them in the "Treatises on Falconry," particularly those of Turbervile and Latham.