A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xi Part 88

[275] When the king visited the different parts of the country.

When the court made those excursions, which were called Progresses, to the seats of the n.o.bility and gentry, waggons and other carriages were impressed for the purpose of conveying the king's baggage, &c.--_Pegge._

This privilege in the crown was continued until the civil wars in the reign of Charles the First, and had been exercised in a manner very oppressive to the subject, insomuch that it frequently became the object of Parliamentary complaint and regulation. During the suspension of monarchy it fell into disuse, and King Charles II at the Restoration consented, for a consideration, to relinquish this as well as all other powers of purveyance and pre-emption. Accordingly, by stat. 12, Car. II. c. xxiv. s. 12, it was declared that no officer should in future take any cart, carriage, or other thing, nor summon or require any person to furnish any horses, oxen, or other cattle, carts, ploughs, wains, or other carriages, for any of the royal family, without the full consent of the owner. An alteration of this act was made the next year, wherein the rates were fixed which should be paid on these occasions, and other regulations were made for preventing the abuse of this prerogative.

[276] A burlesque on the speech of Hieronimo in "The Spanish Tragedy."

See also note to "Green's Tu quoque," and the addition to it [xi.

248.]

[277] _i.e._, Towards bedtime. So in "Coriola.n.u.s"--

"And tapers burn'd to _bedward_."

--_Steevens._

[278] Pounded. See note to "The Ordinary," act v. sc. 4, [vol. xii.]

[279] [Edits., _appear speck and span gentlemen_.] _Speck and span new_ is a phrase not yet out of use; _span new_ occurs in Chaucer's "Troilus and Creseide," bk. iii. l. 1671--

"This tale was aie _span newe_ to beginne, Til that the night departed 'hem at winne."

This is thought a phrase of some difficulty. It occurs in Fuller's "Worthies," Herefords.h.i.+re, p. 40, where we read of _spick and span new money_. A late friend of mine was willing to deduce it from spinning, as if it were a phrase borrowed from the clothing art, _quasi_ new spun from the spike or brooche. It is here written _speck and span_, and in all cases means _entire_. I deem it tantamount to every _speck and every span, i.e._, all over.--_Pegge._

In "Hudibras," Part I. c. 3, l. 397, are these lines--

"Then, while the honour thou hast got Is _spick and span new_, piping hot," &c.

Upon which Dr Grey has this note: "Mr Ray observes ('English Proverbs,' 2d edit. p. 270), that this proverbial phrase, according to Mr Howel, comes from _spica_, an ear of corn: but rather, says he, as I am informed from a better author, _spike_ is a sort of _nail_, and _sp.a.w.n_ the _chip_ of a boat; so that it is all one as to say, every _chip_ and _nail_ is new. But I am humbly of opinion that it rather comes from _spike_, which signifies a _nail_, and a _nail_ in measure is the 16th part of a yard; and _span_, which is in measure a quarter of a yard, or nine inches; and all that is meant by it, when applied to a new suit of clothes, is that it has been just measured from the piece by the _nail_ and _span_." See the expression in Ben Jonson's "Bartholomew Fair," act iii. sc. 5. [See Nares, edit. 1859; Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869; and Wedgwood's "Dictionary of English Etymology,"

all in _v._]

[280] [Edits., _Hilech_.] The name of Ursa Major in Greek.--_Pegge._

[281] A famous Indian philosopher (Fabricius, p. 281); but why he terms him a Babylonian I cannot conceive.--_Pegge._

[282] See [Suckling's Works, by Hazlitt, ii. 4.]

[283] I believe this word should be Artenosoria, the doctrine of Antidotes; unless we should read Artenasoria in allusion to Tallicotius and his method of making supplemental noses, referred to by Butler in "Hudibras."--_Pegge._

[284] Coskinomancy is the art of divining by a sieve.--_Pegge._

[285] It was not known then, I presume, that Venus had her increase and decrease.--_Pegge._

[286] The Greek word for _Plenilunium_.--_Pegge._

[287] All people then wore bands.--_Pegge._

[288] i.e., Bottles out of which liquid perfumes were anciently cast or thrown.--_Steevens._ They are mentioned in "Lingua," [ix. 419.]

[289] See note to the "Antiquary," [act iv. sc. 1, vol. xiii.]

[290] These, and what follows are terms of falconry; _flags_, in particular, are the second and baser order of feathers in the hawk's wing (Chambers's "Dictionary").--_Pegge._

[291] The _sear_ is the yellow part between the beak and the eyes of the hawk.--_Pegge._

[292] They usually carried the keys of their cabinets there.--_Pegge._

[293] The first 4 inserts the name of _Cricca_ for that of Trincalo, which is decidedly wrong.--_Collier._

[294] An instrument chiefly used for taking the alt.i.tude of the pole, the sun, or stars, at sea.

[295] A name given to such instruments as are used for observing and determining the distances, magnitudes, and places of the heavenly bodies.

[296] A term to express the points or horns of the moon, or other luminary.

[297] With astrologers, is a temporary power they imagine the planets have over the life of any person.

[298] The centre of the sun. A planet is said to be in _cazimi_ when it is not above 70 degrees distant from the body of the sun.

[299] [Old copy, _And_.]

[300] Sir Thomas Wyat, in his celebrated letter to John Poines, has a pa.s.sage much in point--

"To ioyne the meane with ech extremitie, With nearest vertue ay to cloke the vice.

And as to purpose likewise it shall fall To presse the vertue that it may not rise, As _dronkennesse good-felows.h.i.+p to call_."

--_Collier._

[301] _Almuten,_ with astronomers, is the lord of a figure, or the strongest planet in a nativity. _Alchochoden_ is the giver of life or years, the planet which bears rule in the princ.i.p.al places of an astrological figure when a person is born; so that his life may be expected longer or shorter, according to the station, &c., of this planet.

[302] "To _impe_," says Blount, "is a term most usual among falconers, and is when a feather in a hawkes wing is broken, and another piece imped or graffed on the stump of the old." "_Himp_ or _imp,_ in the British language, is _surculus_ a young graffe or twig; thence _impio_, the verb to innoculate or graff. Hence the word to _imp_ is borrowed by the English; first, surely, to graff trees, and thence translated to _imping_ feathers." See also Mr Steevens's note on "King Richard II.," act ii. sc. 1.

[303] _Me_ is omitted in the two quartos.--_Collier._

[304] _To_, the sign of the infinitive, is often omitted, and the verse requires it should be expunged here.--_Pegge._ Both the quartos read as in the text.--_Reed._

[305] Mr Reed allowed this line to stand--

"Whom all intelligence _have_ drown'd this three months."

The restoration of the true reading also restores the grammar of the pa.s.sage.--_Collier._

[306] The same thought occurs in Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost,"

act iv. sc. 3--

"O me! with what strict patience have I sat, To see a king transformed _to a knot_!"

[307] Mr Steevens, in his note to "King Richard III.," act v. sc. 3, observes there was anciently a particular kind of candle, called a _watch_ because, being marked out into sections, each of which was a certain portion of time in burning, it supplied the place of the more modern instrument by which we measure the hours. He also says these candles are represented with great nicety in some of the pictures of Albert Durer.

[308] These words, as here printed, may be the pure language of falconry, like _bate_, which follows, and signifies to _flutter_. Yet I suspect that for _brail_ we should read _berail_, and for _hud_ us, _hood_ us.