A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 129

[342] [Separate.] This is obviously quoted from the marriage ceremony: as Mr Todd has shown, the Dissenters in 1661 did not understand _depart_ in the sense of _separate_, which led to the alteration of the Liturgy, "till death us _do part_." In the "Salisbury Manual" of 1555 it stands thus: "I, N, take thee, M, to my wedded wyf, to have and to holde fro this day forwarde, for better for wors, for richer for poorer, in sicknesse and in hele, tyl deth us _departe_."--_Collier_.

So in "Every Woman in her Humour," 1609: "And the little G.o.d of love, he shall be her captain: sheele sewe under him _'till death us depart_, and thereto I plight thee my troth." And Heywood, in his "Wise Woman of Hogsdon," iii., makes Chastley also quote from the marriage ceremony: "If every new moone a man might have a new wife, that's every year a dozen; but this _'till death us depart_ is tedious."

[343] [Edits., _two sentinels_.]

[344] Edits., _them one_.

[345] [Edits., _lives_.]

[346] [Remind.]

[347] [Edits., _know him great_, which could only be made sense by supposing it to mean, _knowing him rich_, and not a person to be offended. Scarborow afterwards repudiates the idea of being _ungrateful_.]

[348] By a misprint the three following lines have been till now given to Harcop.--_Collier_.

[349] [Edits., _your presence_.]

[350] First edit., _even_.

[351] [Edits., _is_.]

[352] [Edits., _what_.]

[353] That is, acquainted, or informed him. So in "Every Man in his Humour," act i. sc. 5, Bobadil says, "_Possess_ no gentleman of our acquaintance with notice of my lodging." And again, in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Honest Man's Fortune," act ii. sc. 1--

"Sir, I am very well _possess'd_ of it."

[354] Edits. 1629 [and 1637], _honoured_.

[355] First edit., _how_.

[356] [Edits., _they_.]

[357] The word _sir_ was inserted here as if only to spoil the measure.

--_Collier_.

[358] i.e., Amerce.--_Steevens_.

[359] [i.e., the bond.]

[360] [Edits., _pergest_, which Steevens in a note explained _goeth on_, from Lat. _pergo_; and Nares cites the present pa.s.sage for the word. I do not believe that it was ever employed in English, though Shakespeare uses the original Latin once. _Purgest_ is surely preferable, since Ilford has been just giving a list of those he has undone.]

[361] [Apparently a play on the double meaning of _talent_ is intended.]

[362] [Bonds.]

[363] In a similar vein of humour, but much more exquisite, Addison, speaking of Sir Roger de Coverley, says, "He told me some time since that, upon his courting the perverse widow, he had disposed of an hundred acres in a diamond ring, which he would have presented her with, had she thought fit to accept it; and that upon her wedding-day she should have carried on her head fifty of the tallest oaks upon his estate. He further informed me that he would have given her a coalpit to keep her in clean linen; that he would have allowed her the profits of a windmill for her fans, and have presented her once in three years with the shearing of his sheep for her under-petticoats."--_Spectator_, No.

295.

In Wilson's "Discourse uppon Usurye," 1572, the subsequent pa.s.sage occurs:--"Thus master merchant, when he hath robbed the poore gentleman and furnisht him in this manner to get a little apparel upon his back, girdeth him with this pompe in the tail: Lo, sayethe hee, yonder goeth a very strong stowt gentleman, for _he cariethe upon his backe a faire manour, land and all_, and may therefore well be standard-bearer to any prince Christian or heathen."

[364] [Chicken.]

[365] The place most commonly used for exposing the heads of traitors.

[366] [Edits.--

"O! but what shall I write?

Mine own excuse."

[367] [Edits., _large, full_.]

[368] [Edits., _appearance, and so as they are, I hope we shall be, more indeer'd, intirely, better, and more feelingly acquainted_.]

[369] [Either whets their appet.i.te, or prostrates them. The speaker alludes probably to the early forenoon meal then in vogue.]

[370] The line was formerly mispointed, and misprinted thus--

"Then live a strumpet. Better be unborn."

Clare means, that it were better never to have been born than to live a strumpet.--_Collier_.

[371] Edit. 1611, _would_; and in the next line, _did_.

[372] [Edits., _That_.]

[373] [Edits., _writes_.]

[374] Pitiless, without pity.

[375] [Edits., _her_.]

[376] [This line is a.s.suredly corrupt, but the true reading is a matter of question.]

[377] [Edits., _and_.]

[378] Their exit is not marked, but as their re-entrance is noticed afterwards, it is to be presumed that they followed, the old man out.

[379] Perhaps misprinted for _haven_.--_Collier_.

[380] _Example by, &c_.--second and third edits.

[381] [Edits.], _stare_-wearer, which means no doubt _stair_-wearer, or wearer of the stairs by going up and down them so frequently at call.

--_Collier_.

[382] [Edit. 1607, _ha't for you_.]

[383] "_Red lattice_ at the doors and windows were formerly the external denotements of an alehouse; hence the present _chequers_." Mr Steevens observes (note to "Merry Wives of Windsor," act ii. sc. 2) that "perhaps the reader will express some surprise when he is told that shops with the sign of the _chequers_, were common among the Romans. See a view of the left-hand street of Pompeii (No. 9) presented by Sir William Hamilton (together with several others equally curious) to the Antiquary Society." [Compare "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," ii. 277-8.]