"The proverb says, who fights with dirty foes

Must needs be soil'd, admit they win or lose:

Then think it doth a Doctor's credit dash

To make himself antagonist to Nash."

--B. II., _Epigr_. 36.

[11] _Tergimini_ means the three Harveys, for Gabriel took up the

cudgels for himself and his two brothers.

[12] The death of Nash is spoken of in the address to a tract, which is

the more curious, as it forms a second part to "Pierce Penniless." It

has been assigned to Decker, under the title of "News from Hell;" [and

it was reprinted under the title of "A Knight's Conjuring." This issue

is included in the Percy Society's series.]

[13] [See the list, however, in "Ath. Cantab.," ii. 307-9, and in

Hazlitt's "Handbook," in v.]

[14] In 1589 Nash wrote the address prefixed to Robert Greene's

"Menaphon," which contains notices of various preceding and contemporary

poets, and which has been admired by all but Mr Malone, for the general

purity of its style and the justness of its criticism. As Nash was born

in November 1567, he was only in his twenty-second year when it was

published.

[15] Parts of "Pierce Penniless, his Supplication to the Devil," are

written by Nash in a similar strain of bitter grief for past errors,

especially a poem inserted near the commencement. [As to Nash's

withdrawal of his apology, see Hazlitt in v.]

"Why is't damnation to despair and die

When life is my true happiness' disease?

My soul! my soul! thy safety makes me fly

The faulty means that might my pain appease.

Divines and dying men may talk of hell,

But in my heart her several torments dwell.

"Ah, worthless wit, to train me to this woe!

Deceitful arts that nourish discontent.

Ill thrive the folly that bewitch'd me so,

Vain thoughts, adieu, for now I will repent.

And yet my wants persuade me to proceed,

Since none takes pity of a scholar's need."

The last two lines of the first stanza are given to the Father in

"The Yorkshire Tragedy," attributed to Shakespeare.

[16] This play (if it do not more properly come under the class of

_shews_, as Nash himself calls it) was not printed until 1600; but

internal evidence proves that it was written, and probably performed, as

early as the autumn of 1592. Various decisive marks of time are pointed

out in notes in the course of the play, the principal of which are, the

great drought, the progress of Queen Elizabeth to Oxford, and the

breaking out of the plague. The piece was presented at Croydon, at the

residence of some nobleman, who is mentioned in many places. The

theatres in London were closed at this date in consequence of the

mortality. (See Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, in. 299, note). In the

prologue we are told that the representation was not on a _common

stage_.

[17] The subsequent account of Will Sommers, or Summer, King Henry the

Eighth's celebrated fool, is from the pen of Robert Armin, an author and

actor, who himself often played the clown's part in the time of

Shakespeare. It is in his "Nest of Ninnies, _simply of themselves,

without compound_," 1608, 4to--

"Will Sommers born in Shropshire, as some say,

Was brought to Greenwich on a holiday,

Presented to the King; which Fool disdain'd

To shake him by the hand, or else asham'd:

Howe'er it was, as ancient people say,

With much ado was won to it that day.

Lean he was, hollow-eyed, as all report.

And stoop he did too; yet in all the court,

Few men were more belov'd than was this Fool,

Whose merry prate kept with the King much rule.

When he was sad, the King and he would rhime;

Thus Will exiled sadness many a time.

I could describe him as I did the rest,

But in my mind I do not think it best:

My reason this--howe'er I do descry him,

So many knew him, that I may belie him;

Therefore, to please all people, one by one,

I hold it best to let that pains alone.

Only thus much: he was a poor man's friend,

And help'd the widow often in the end.

The King would ever grant what he did crave,

For well he knew Will no exacting knave;

But wish'd the King to do good deeds great store,

Which caus'd the court to love him more and more."

Some few of the personal particulars, here omitted, Nash supplies in

the course of this play. [In 1676 a pamphlet was printed, purporting

falsely to be] "A pleasant History of the Life and death of Will

Summers; how he came first to be known at court, and by what means he

got to be King Henry the Eighth's 'Jester.'" It was reprinted by Harding

in 1794, with an engraving from an old portrait, supposed to be Will

Summer; but if it be authentic, it does not at all support Armin's

description of him, that he was "lean and hollow-eyed." Many of the

jests are copied from the French and Italian; and [almost all] of them

have been assigned also to Scoggin and Tarlton. One or two of these are

introduced into S. Rowley's "When you see me you know me," a historical

comedy, first printed in 1605, in which Will Summer plays a prominent

part.

[18] Hor. Lib. i. Epist. 16, I, 62.

[19] Dick Huntley was, perhaps, the book-holder or prompter who is

subsequently mentioned, and whom Will Summer, in the licence of his

character, calls by his name. Perhaps his "cousin Ned" was another of

the actors. Harry Baker is spoken of in the scene, where Vertumnus is

despatched for Christmas and Backwinter.

[20] [The tract here referred to is Robert Copland's poem, called "Jyl

of Breyntford's Testament." See Hazlitt's "Handbook," p. 122.] Julian of

Brentford, or, as she is here called, Gyllian of Braynford, seems to

have been an old woman who had the reputation of possessing supernatural

power. In Henslowe's MSS., a play by Thomas Downton and Samuel Ridley,

called "Friar Fox and Gillian of Brentford," is mentioned under date of

February 1598-9, but it was acted, as appears by the same authority, as

early as 5th January 1592. She is noticed in "Westward Hoe!" 1607, where

Clare says: "O Master Linstock, 'tis no walking will serve my turn: have

me to bed, good, sweet Mistress Honeysuckle. I doubt that _old hag

Gillian of Braineford_ has bewitched me." Sig. G 4.

Julian of Brentford's will had been spoken of before by Nash in his

epistle "to the Gentlemen Students of both Universities," prefixed to

Greene's "Menaphoii," in 1589. "But so farre discrepant is the idle

vsage of our unexperienced and illiterated Punies from this

prescription, that a tale of Joane a Brainfords Will, and the vnlucky

frumenty, will be as soone entertained into their Libraries as the best

Poeme that euer Tasso eternisht."

[21] Camden, in his "Annals of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth," thus

speaks of the ravages of the plague in 1592-3, "For this whole year the

sickness raged violently in London, Saturn passing through the extreme

parts of Cancer and the head of Leo, as it did in the year 1563; in so

much, that when the year came about, there died of the sickness and

other diseases in the city and suburbs, 17,890 persons, besides William

Roe, Mayor, and three Aldermen; so that Bartholomew Fair was not kept,

and Michaelmas term was held at St Alban's, twenty miles from London."

[22] Vertumnus enters at the same time, but his name is not mentioned in

the old 4to at the opening of the scene. He acts the part of a messenger,

and, as appears afterwards, was provided with a silver arrow.

[23] Well-flogged.

[24] Hor. lib. i. car. 28--

"Sed omnibus una manet nox,

Et calcanda semel via leti."

[25] "The Queen in her summer progress passed through Oxford, and stayed

there several days, where she was agreeably entertained with elegant

speeches, plays, and disputations, and received a splendid treat from

the Lord Buckhurst, Chancellor of the University."--_Camden's "Annals of

Elizabeth_." Her progress is again alluded to in that part of the play

where Summer makes his will--

"And finally, O words, now cleanse your course,

Unto Eliza, that most sacred dame,

Whom none but saints and angels ought to name,

All my fair days remaining I bequeath,

To wait upon her, _till she be return'd_," &c.

[26] The following passage in Gabriel Harvey's "New Letter of Notable

Contents, 1593," speaking of Nash, confirms the conjecture that

_Falantado_ or _Falanta_ was the burden of a song or ballad at the

time:--"Let him be the _Falanta_ down-diddle of rhyme, the hayhohaliday

of prose, the welladay of new writers, and the cutthroat of his

adversaries."

[27] The hobby-horse was a basket-horse used in morris-dances and May

games. See note 37 to Greene's "Tu Quoque."

[28] [Hall, the taborer, mentioned in "Old Meg of Herefordshire," 1609.

See the reprint in "Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana," 1816.]

[29] A vulgar colloquialism for laying a girl on the grass.

[30] He ran in debt to this amount to usurers, who advanced him money by

giving him _lute-strings and grey paper_; which he was obliged to sell

at an enormous loss. There is a very apposite passage in Nash's

"Christ's Tears over Jerusalem," 1593, where he is referring to the

resort of spendthrifts and prodigals to usurers for supplies: In the

first instance, they obtain what they desire, "but at the second time of

their coming, it is doubtful to say whether they shall have money or no:

the world grows hard, and we are all mortal: let them make him any

assurance before a judge, and they shall have some hundred pounds (_per

consequence_) in silks and velvets. The third time if they come, they

have baser commodities: the fourth time _lute-strings and grey paper_;

and then, I pray pardon me, I am not for you: pay me that you owe me,

and you shall have anything."

So also in Greene's and Lodge's "Looking Glass for London and England,"

1594, a gentleman thus addresses a usurer, in hopes of inducing him to

relent: "I pray you, sir, consider that my loss was great by the

commodity I took up: you know, sir, I borrowed of you forty pounds,

whereof I had ten pounds in money, and thirty pounds in _lute-strings_,

which when I came to sell again, I could get but five pounds for them."

[31] Some case of horse-stealing, which had lately taken place, and

which had attracted public attention.

[32] See Collier's "Bibliogr. Catal.," ii. 512. Extr. from Stat. Reg.,

i. 184, and a woodcut in his "Book of Roxburghe Ballads," 1847, p. 103.

[33] The title of an old ballad. Compare Collier's "Extr. from

Stationers' Registers," i. 7, 19, and Rimbault's "Book of Songs and

Ballads," p. 83.

[34] The words of Aulus Gellius are these: "Neque mihi," inquit.

"aedificatio, neque vasum, neque vestimentum ullum est manupreciosum,

neque preciosus servus, neque ancilla est: si quid est," inquit, "quod

utar, utor: si non est, egeo: suum cuique per me uti atque frui licet."

Tum deinde addit: "Vitio vertunt, quia multa egeo; at ego illis quia

nequeunt egere."--Noct. Attic., lib. xiii. c. 23.

[35] Ovid "Rem. Am." l. 749.

[36] Nash seems, from various parts of his works, to have been well read

in what are called, though not very properly in English, the burlesque

poets of Italy. This praise of poverty in the reply of Ver to the

accusation of Summer is one proof of his acquaintance with them. See

"Capitolo sopra l'epiteto della poverta, à Messer Carlo Capponi," by

Matteo Francesi in the Rime Piacevoli del Berni, Copetta, Francesi, &c.,

vol. ii. p. 48. Edit. Vicenza, 1609--

"In somma ella non ha si del bestiale,

Com' altri stima, perche la natura

Del poco si contenta, e si prevale," &c.

[37] [Jesus.]

[38] Sir J. Hawkins, in his "Hist. Music," iv. 479, contends that the

_recorder_ was the same instrument as that we now term a _flageolet_.

Some have maintained that it is the _flute_. [See Dyce's "Glossary" to

his second edit. of _Shakespeare_, in v.]

[39] Chaucer [if at least he had anything to do with the poem,]

translates _day's-eye_, or _daisy_, into _margarete_ in French,

in the following stanza from his "Flower and the Leaf"--

"Whereto they enclined everichon

With great reverence and that full humbly,

And at the lust there began anon

A lady for to sing right womanly

A bargaret in praising the _day's-eye_,

For as, methought, among her notes swete,

She said, _Si douce est la margarete_."

[40] Nash seems often to have quoted from memory, and here he has either

coupled parts of two lines, so as to make one, or he has invented a

beginning to the ending of Ovid's "Metam.," ii. 137. [The author seems

merely to have introduced scraps of Latin, without much regard to their

juxtaposition.]

[41] [A common subject at shows.]

[42] [A _jeu-de-mots_ on the scale in music and the Latin word _sol_.]

[43] [Some play on words is here probably meant. _Eyesore_ quasi

_eye-soar_.]

[44] It may be doubtful whether this is the right word. Old copy,

_sonne_.

[45] [Old copy, _baddest_.]

[46] [Old copy, _Heber_.]

[47] The quarto reads--

"And as for poetry, _woods_ eloquence."

It is no doubt a misprint for _words' eloquence_, or the eloquence of

words.

[48] [Old copy, _source_. The emendation was suggested by Collier.]

[49] [Former edits.--"Envy envieth not outcries unrest."

And so the 4to.]

[50] [Old copy, _slight_.]

[51] On this subject Camden tells us: "There was both this summer (1592)

and the last so great a drought all England over, that the fields were

burnt, and the fountains dried up, and a great many beasts perish'd

everywhere for want of water. The Thames likewise, the noblest river of

all Britain, and which has as full and large a tide as any in Europe

(for it flows twice a day above sixty miles from the mouth of it, and

receives an increase from the mixture of many other streams and rivers

with it), was, however, sunk to that degree (to the wonder of all men)

on the 5th September, that a man might ride over it near London Bridge,

so shallow was the channel."

[52] There seems to be no account of this flood, unless it was that

which occurred in the autumn of 1579. See Stow's "Annals," edit. 1615,

fol. 686, and Collier's "Extr. from Stat. Reg.," ii. 105. There was also

a great partial flood in 1571; but it is not mentioned as having

affected the Thames.

[53] i.e., Persons who had drunk the Thames water fell ill.

[54] Guesses.

[55] _Had I wist_ is _had I thought_; and the words are often met with

as the reproof of imprudence. So afterwards again in this play--

"Young heads count to build on _had I wist_."

[56] Skelton wrote a humorous doggrel piece called the "Tunning of

Elinor Rummin," which is here alluded to.

[57] This anecdote is from Aulus Gellius, "Noct. Attic.,"

lib. xvii. c. 9--

"Asiam tune tenebat imperio rex Darius: is Histiaeus, cum in Persia

apud Darium esset, Aristagorae cuipiam res quasdam occultas nuntiare

furtivo scripto volebat: comminiscitur opertum hoc literarum admirandum.

Servo suo diu oculos aegros habenti capillum ex capite omni, tanquam

medendi gratia, deradit, caputque ejus leve in literarum formas

compungit: his literis, quae voluerat, perscripsit: hominem postea,

quoad capillus adolesceret, domo continuit: ubi id factum est, ire ad

Aristagoram jubet; et cum ad eum, inquit, veneris, mandasse me dicito,

ut caput tuum, sicut nuper egomet feci, deradat. Servus ut imperatum

erat, ad Aristagoram venit, mandatumque domini affert: atque ille id

non esse frustra ratus, quod erat mandatum, fecit: ita literae

perlatae sunt."

Herodotus "Terps," c. 35, tells the story somewhat differently. The

following is Mr Beloe's translation of it:--

"Whilst he was in this perplexity, a messenger arrived from Histiaeus at

Susa, who brought with him an express command to revolt, the particulars

of which were impressed in legible characters upon his skull. Histiaeus

was desirous to communicate his intentions to Aristagoras; but as the

ways were strictly guarded, he could devise no other method. He

therefore took one of the most faithful of his slaves, and inscribed

what we have mentioned upon his skull, being first shaved; he detained

the man till his hair was again grown, when he sent him to Miletus,

desiring him to be as expeditious as possible: Aristagoras being

requested to examine his skull, he discovered the characters which

commanded him to commence a revolt. To this measure Histiaeus was

induced by the vexation he experienced from his captivity at Susa."

It is pretty evident that Nash took Aulus Gellius as his authority, from

the insertion of the circumstance of the defective sight of the servant,

which certainly is important, as giving Histiaeus an excuse for shaving

his head.

[58] Peter Bales, who is here immortalised, has also received honourable

mention in Holinshed's Chronicle. He was supposed by Evelyn to be the

inventor of shorthand, but that art was discovered some years earlier by

Dr Timothy Bright, who is better known as the author of "A Treatise of

Melancholy," which was first published in 1586. Bales was born in 1547,

and many of the incidents of his life have come down to us; for while

the lives of poets and philosophers are left in obscurity, the important

achievements of a writing-master are detailed by contemporaries with

laborious accuracy. Mr D'Israeli, in his "Curiosities of Literature,"

has not scrupled to devote many pages to Bales's contests for

superiority with a rival penman of the name of Johnson. Bales was the

improver of Dr Bright's system, and, according to his own account in his

"Writing Schoolmaster," he was able to keep pace with a moderate

speaker. He seems to have been engaged in public life, by acting as

secretary where caligraphy was required; and he was at length accused of

being concerned in the plot of Lord Essex; but he was afterwards

vindicated, and punished his accuser. The greatest performance, that in

which his exalted fame may most securely rest, was the writing of the

Lord's Prayer, Creed, Decalogue, with two Latin prayers, in the compass

of a penny. Brachygraphy had arrived at considerable perfection soon

after 1600, and in Webster's "Devil's Law Case," there is a trial scene,

in which the following is part of the dialogue--

SANITONELLA. Do you hear, officers?

You must take special care that you let in

No _brachygraphy_ men to take notes.

1st OFFICER. No. sir.

SANITONELLA. By no means:

We cannot have a cause of any fame,

But you must have some scurvy pamphlets and lewd ballads

Engendered of it presently.

In Heywood's "Pleasant Dialogues and Dramas," 1637, he complains that

some persons by stenography had drawn the plot of his play, and put it

into print; but he adds (which certainly does not tell much in favour of

the perfection of the art as then practised) that it was "scarce one

word true."

[59] In the margin opposite "Sol should have been beholding to the

barber, and not to the beard-master," the words "_Imberbis Apollo_,

a beardless poet," are inserted in the margin.

[60] From what is said here, and in other parts of the play, we may

conclude that it was performed either by the children of St Paul's, of

the Queen's Chapel, or of the Revels. Afterwards Will Summer, addressing

the performers, says to them: "Learn of him, you _diminutive urchins_,

how to behave yourselves in your vocations," &c. The epilogue is spoken

by a little boy, who sits on Will Summer's knee, and who, after it is

delivered, is carried out.

[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 "Ship 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, _God'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 Massinger'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 entitle 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 passage 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 "Albumazar"--

"I'll entertain him here: meanwhile steal you

Closely into the room;"

and in many other places.

[97] Old copy, _Hope_.

[98] Old copy, _as this, like_.

[99] Old copy, _Will_.

[100] The "shepherd that now sleeps in skies" is Sir Philip Sidney, and

the line, with a slight inversion for the sake of the rhyme, is taken

from a sonnet in "Astrophel and Stella," appended to the "Arcadia"--

"Because I breathe not love to every one,

Nor do I use set colours for to wear,

Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair,

Nor give each speech a full point of a groan,

The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan

Of them who in their lips love's standard bear,

'What he?' say they of me, 'now I dare swear

He cannot love: no, no; let him alone.'

And think so still, so Stella know my mind:

Profess, indeed, I do not Cupid's art;

But you, fair maids, at length this true shall find,

That his right badge is but worn in the heart.

Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove:

They love indeed who quake to say they love."

--P. 537, edit. 1598.

It may be worth a remark that the two last lines are quoted with a

difference in "England's Parnassus," 1600, p. 191--

"Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove;

They love indeed who _dare not say_ they love."

In the quarto copy of Nash's play the word _swains_ is misprinted for

_swans_. The introduction to the passage would have afforded Mr Malone

another instance, had he wanted one, that shepherd and poet were used

almost as synonymes by Shakespeare's contemporaries.

[101] Perhaps we ought to read _feign_ instead of _frame_; but _frame_

is very intelligible, and it has therefore not been altered.

[102] The quarto gives this line thus--

"Of secrets more desirous _or_ than men,"

which is decidedly an error of the press.

[103] [Old copy, every.]

[104] [Old copy, true hell.]

[105] See act i. sc. 3 of "Macbeth"--

2D WITCH. I'll give thee a wind.

1ST WITCH. Thou art kind.

3D WITCH. And I another.

From the passage in Nash's play, it seems that Irish and Danish witches

could sell winds: Macbeth's witches were Scotish.

[106] [Old copy, _party_.]

[107] [Old copy, _Form'd_.]

[108] As usual, Nash has here misquoted, or the printer has omitted a

word. Virgil's line is--

"_Fama malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum_."

--"Aeneid," iv. 174.

Gabriel Harvey, replying in 1597, in his "Trimming of Thomas Nash,

Gentleman" (written in the name of Richard Litchfield, the

barber-surgeon of Trinity College, Cambridge), also alludes to this

commonplace: "The virtuous riches wherewith (as broad-spread fame

reporteth) you are endued, though _fama malum_ (as saith the poet) which

I confirm," &c. Perhaps this was because Nash had previously employed it,

or it might be supposed that the barber would have been unacquainted

with it.

[109] A soldier of this sort, or one pretending to be a soldier, is a

character often met with in our old comedies, such as Lieutenant

Maweworm and Ancient Hautboy in "A Mad World, my Masters," Captain Face

in "Ram-Alley," &c.

[110] [_Dii minores_.]

[111] Pedlar's French was another name for the cant language used by

vagabonds. What pedlars were may be judged from the following

description of them in "The Pedlar's Prophecy," a comedy printed in

1595, but obviously written either very early in the reign of Elizabeth,

or perhaps even in that of her sister--

"I never knew honest man of this occupation.

But either he was a dycer, a drunkard, a maker of shift,

A picker, or cut-purse, a raiser of simulation,

Or such a one as run away with another man's wife."

[112] [Old copy, _by_.]

[113] _Ink-horn_ is a very common epithet of contempt for pedantic and

affected expressions. The following, from Churchyard's "Choice," sig.

E e 1., sets it in its true light--

"As _Ynkehorne_ termes smell of the schoole sometyme."

It went out of use with the disuse of ink-horns. It would be very easy

to multiply instances where the word is employed in our old writers. It

most frequently occurs in Wilson's "Rhetoric," where is inserted an

epistle composed of _ink-horn terms_; "suche a letter as Wylliam Sommer

himself could not make a better for that purpose. Some will thinke, and

swere it too, that there never was any suche thing written: well, I will

not force any man to beleve it, but I will saie thus much, and abyde by

it too, the like have been made heretofore, and praised above the

moone." It opens thus--

"Ponderying, expendying, and revolutying with myself, your urgent

affabilitee, and ingenious capacitee, for mundaine affaires, I cannot

but celebrate and extolle your magnificall dexteritee above all other;

for how could you have adopted such illustrate, prerogative, and

dominicall superioritee, if the fecunditee of your inginie had not been

so fertile and wonderfull pregnant?"--Fo. 86. edit. 1553. Wilson

elsewhere calls them "_ink-pot_ terms."

[114] [The popular idea at that time, and long afterwards, of

Machiavelli, arising from a misconception of his drift in "Il Principe."

See an article on this subject in Macaulay's "Essays."]

[115] [Old copy, _toucheth_, which may, of course, be right; but the

more probable word is that here substituted.]

[116] [The "Ebrietatis Encomium."]

[117] [Perhaps the "Image of Idleness," of which there was an edition in

1581. See Hazlitt's "Handbook," p. 291, and ibid. Suppl.]

[118] Nash alludes to a celebrated burlesque poem by Francisco Copetta,

entitled (in the old collection of productions of the kind, made in

1548, and many times afterwards reprinted), "Capitolo nel quale si

lodano le Noncovelle." Some of the thoughts in Rochester's well-known

piece seem taken from it. A notion of the whole may be formed from the

following translation of four of the _terze rime_--

"_Nothing_ is brother to primaeval matter,

'Bout which philosophers their brains may batter

To find it out, but still their hopes they flatter.

"Its virtue is most wondrously display'd,

For in the Bible, we all know, 'tis said,

God out of _nothing_ the creation made.

"Yet _nothing_ has nor head, tail, back, nor shoulder,

And tho' than the great _Dixit_ it is older,

Its strength is such, that all things first shall moulder.

"The rank of _nothing_ we from this may see:

The mighty Roman once declared that he

Caesar or _nothing_ was resolv'd to be."

[But after all, had not Nash more probably in his recollection Sir

Edward Dyer's "Praise of Nothing," a prose tract printed in 1585?]

[119] [See Hazlitt's "Handbook," v. Fleming.]

[120] [Alluding to the "Grobianus et Grobiana" of Dedekindus.]

[121] Ovid's lines are these--

"Discite, qui sapitis, non quae nos scimus inertes,

Sed trepidas acies, et fera castra sequi."

--"Amorum," lib. iii. el. 8.

[122] The author of "The World's Folly," 1615, uses _squitter-wit_ in

the same sense that Nash employs _squitter-book_: "The _primum mobile_,

which gives motion to these over-turning wheels of wickedness, are

those mercenary _squitter-wits_, miscalled poets."

In "The Two Italian Gentlemen," the word _squitterbe-book_, or

_squitter-book_, is found, and with precisely the same signification

which Nash gives it--

"I would mete with the scalde _squitterbe-booke_ for this geare."

[123] His _nown_, instead of his _own_, was not an uncommon corruption.

So Udall--"Holde by his yea and nay, be his _nowne_ white sonne."

[124] [Old copy, _Fuilmerodach_.]

[125] _Regiment_ has been so frequently used in the course of these

volumes, in the sense of government or rule, that it is hardly worth

a note.

[126] This is, of course, spoken ironically, and of old, the expression

_good fellow_ bore a double signification, which answered the purpose of

Will Summer. Thus, in Lord Brooke's "Caelica," sonnet 30--

"_Good fellows_, whom men commonly doe call.

Those that do live at warre with truth and shame."

Again, in Heywood's "Edward IV. Part I.," sig. E 4--

"KING EDWARD. Why, dost thou not love a _good fellow_?

"HOBS. No, _good fellows_ be _thieves_."

[127] Henry Baker was therefore the name of the actor who performed the

part of Vertumnus.

[128] The joke here consists in the similarity of sound between

_despatch_ and _batch_, Will Summers mistaking, or pretending to

mistake, in consequence.

[129] [Old copy, _Sybalites_.]

[130] This is still, as it was formerly, the mode of describing the

awkward bowing of the lower class. In the "Death of Robert Earl of

Huntington," 1601, when Will Brand, a vulgar assassin, is introduced

to the king, the stage direction to the actor in the margin is,

"_Make Legs_."

[131] A proverb in [Heywood's "Epigrams," 1562. See Hazlitt's

"Proverbs," 1869, p. 270. Old copy, _love me a little_.]

[132] [Old copy, _deny_.]

[133] The meaning of the word _snudge_ is easily guessed in this place,

but it is completely explained by T. Wilson, in his "Rhetoric," 1553,

when he is speaking of a figure he calls _diminution_, or moderating the

censure applied to vices by assimilating them to the nearest virtues:

thus he would call "a _snudge_ or _pynche-penny_ a good husband, a

thrifty man" (fo. 67). Elsewhere he remarks: "Some riche _snudges_,

having great wealth, go with their hose out at heels, their shoes out at

toes, and their cotes out at both elbowes; for who can tell if such men

are worth a grote when their apparel is so homely, and all their

behavior so base?" (fo. 86.) The word is found in Todd's Johnson, where

Coles is cited to show that _snudge_ means "one who hides himself in a

house to do mischief." No examples of the employment of the word by any

of our writers are subjoined.

[134] Mr Steevens, in a note to "Hamlet," act iv. sc. 5, says that he

thinks Shakespeare took the expression of _hugger-mugger_ there used

from North's Plutarch, but it was in such common use at the time that

twenty authors could be easily quoted who employ it: it is found in

Ascham, Sir J. Harington, Greene, Nash, Dekker, Tourneur, Ford, &c. In

"The Merry Devil of Edmonton" also is the following line--

"But you will to this gear in _hugger-mugger_."

[135] It is not easy to guess why Nash employed this Italian word

instead of an English one. _Lento_ means lazy, and though an adjective,

it is used here substantively; the meaning, of course, is that the idle

fellow who has no lands begs.

[136] i.e., Hates. See note to "Merchant of Venice," act v. sc. 1.

[137] [Old copy, _Hipporlatos_. The emendation was suggested by

Collier.]

[138] The reader is referred to "Romeo and Juliet," act i. sc. 4,

respecting the strewing of rushes on floors instead of carpets. Though

nothing be said upon the subject, it is evident that Back-winter makes a

resistance before he is forced out, and falls down in the struggle.

[139] [Soiling: a common word in our early writers. Old copy,

_wraying_.]

[140] _I pray you, hold the book well_, was doubtless addressed to the

prompter, or as he is called in the following passage, from the

Induction to Ben Jonson's "Cynthia's Revels," 1601, the _book-holder_:

one of the children of Queen Elizabeth's chapel is speaking of the poet.

"We are not so officiously befriended by him as to have his presence in

the 'tiring house to _prompt_ us aloud, stampe at the _booke-holder_,

sweare for our properties, curse the poor tire-man, raile the musicke

out of tune, and sweat for every veniall trespasse we commit, as some

author would."

[141] [Old copy, _cares_. The word _murmuring_ is, by an apparent error,

repeated in the 4to from the preceding line.]

[142] [Old copy, _ears_.]

[143] Ready.

[144] This line fixes the date when "Summer's Last Will and Testament"

was performed very exactly--viz., during Michaelmas Term, 1593; for

Camden informs us in his "Annals," that in consequence of the plague,

Michaelmas Term, instead of being held in London, as usual, was held at

St Albans.

[145] "Deus, Deus, ille, Menalca!

Sis bonus o felixque tuis."

--Virgil "Ecl." v. 64.

[146] These words, which are clearly a stage direction, and which show

how mere a child delivered the Epilogue, in the old copy are made part

of the text.

[147] Malone originally supposed the plays to be by Heywood, and so

treated them. In the last edit. of Shakespeare by Boswell (iii. 99) the

mistake is allowed to remain, and in a note also "The Downfall of Robert

Earl of Huntington" is quoted as Heywood's production.

[148] Ritson, in his "Robin Hood," I. li. et seq., gives some

quotations from them, as by Munday and Chettle.

[149] Mr Gifford fell into an error (Ben Jonson, vi. 320) in stating

that "The Case is Altered" "should have stood at the head of Jonson's

works, had chronology only been consulted." In the "Life of Ben Jonson,"

he refers to Henslowe's papers to prove that "Every Man in his Humour"

was written in 1596, and in "The Case is Altered," Ben Jonson expressly

quotes Meres' "Palladia Tamia," which was not published until 1598.

Nash's "Lenten Stuff," affords evidence that "the witty play of 'The

Case is Altered'" was popular in 1599.

[150] On the title-page of his translation of "Palmerin of England," the

third part of which bears date in 1602, he is called "one of the

Messengers of her Majesty's Chamber;" but how, and at what date he

obtained this "small court appointment," we are without information.

Perhaps it was given to him as a reward for his services in 1582.

[151] Munday did not always publish under his own name, and according to

Ritson, whose authority has often been quoted on this point, translated

"The Orator, written in French by Alexander Silvayn," under the name of

Lazarus Piot, from the dedication to which it may be inferred that he

had been in the army. "A ballad made by Ant. Munday, of the

encouragement of an English soldier to his fellow mates," was licenced

to John Charlewood, in 1579.

[152] [See the more copious memoir of Munday by Mr Collier, prefixed to

the Shakespeare Society's edit. of his "John-a-Kent," &c., 1851.]

[153] That is, no printed copy has yet been discovered, although it may

have passed through the press.

[154] In Henslowe's MSS. this play is also called, "The First part of

Cardinal Wolsey."

[155] In 1620 was printed "The World toss'd at Tennis, by Thomas

Middleton and William Rowley." Perhaps it is the same play, and Munday

had a share in the authorship of it. [This is not at all probable.]

[156] There is no list of characters prefixed to the old copy.

[157] This forms the Induction to the play, which purports to have been

written to be performed before Henry VIII., by Sir Thomas Mantle, who

performed Robin Hood, by Sir John Eltham, who played the part of Little

John, by Skelton, who acted Friar Tuck, by "Little Tracy," as he is

called, who supported the character of Maid Marian, and others, whose

names are not mentioned. The whole is only supposed to be a rehearsal

prior to the representation of the piece before the king, and in the

course of it Skelton and Sir John Eltham have various critical and

explanatory interlocutions. Skelton, it will be observed, also

undertakes the duty of interpreting the otherwise "inexplicable

dumb-show." The old copy is not divided into acts and scenes.

[158] [Old copy, _your_.]

[159] [In the old copy this direction is unnecessarily repeated in

detail.]

[160] [The direction inserted on p. 107 is repeated in full in the 4to.]

[161] This is in some sort a parody upon the well-known proverb, which

is thus given by Ray--

"Many talk of Robin Hood, that never shot in his bow,

And many talk of Little John, that never did him know."

It is also found in Camden's "Remains," by Philpot, 1636, p. 302, though

the two lines, obviously connected in sense, are there separated. [See

also Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 276.]

[162] This sort of verse, from the frequent use of it made by Skelton in

his poems, acquired the name of _Skeltonic_ or _Skeltonical_. According

to the manner in which the poet's character is drawn, he could not avoid

falling into the use of it, even out of its place, in the course of the

play; and of this a singular instance is given after the capture and

discovery of Ely, when Sir John Eltham, in one of the interlocutions,

complains of Skelton that in performing the part of Friar Tuck he fell--

"Into the vein

Of ribble-rabble rhimes Skeltonical."

In 1589 was published a tract with the following curious title--

"A Skeltonical salutation,

Or condigne gratulation,

And just vexation

Of the Spanish nation;

That in bravado

Spent many a crusado

In setting forth an Armado

England to invado."

The whole piece is in this kind of verse. A copy of it is in the British

Museum.

Puttenham, speaking of poetry of this sort, says: "Such were the rimes

of Skelton (usurping the name of Poet Laureat), being in deede but a

rude, rayling rimer, and all his doings ridiculous; he used both short

distances and short measures, pleasing onely to the popular eare; in our

courtly maker we banish them utterly."--_Arte of English Poesie_, 1589,

p. 69.

[163] Matilda is here, and elsewhere, called Marian, before in fact she

takes that name; and after she has assumed it, in the course of the play

she is frequently called Matilda.

[164] [Old copy, _Into_.]

[165] Jest is used in the same sense in "The Spanish Tragedy," act i.,

where the king exclaims--

"But where is old Hieronimo, our marshal?

He promis'd us, in honour of our guest,

To grace our banquet with some pompous _jest_."

Dr Farmer, in reference to the line in "Richard II., act i. sc. 3--

"As gentle and as jocund as to _jest_,"

quotes the above passage from "The Spanish Tragedy" to show that to

_jest_, "in old language, means _to play a part in a mask_."

[166] [Old copy, _my_.]

[167] [Old copy, _place_.]

[168] Ritson has the following note upon this sign: "That is, the inn so

called, upon Ludgate Hill. The modern sign, which, however, seems to

have been the same 200 years ago, is _a bell_ and _a wild man_; but the

original is supposed to have been _a beautiful Indian_, and the

inscription, _La belle Sauvage_. Some, indeed, assert that the inn once

belonged to a Lady _Arabella Sauvage_; and others that its name

originally, the _belle_ and _Sauvage_, arose (like the _George and Blue

Boar_) from the junction of two inns with those respective signs. _Non

nostrum est tantas componere lites_." "Robin Hood," I. p. liv.

[169] [Old copy, _meant_.]

[170] Little John's _exit_ is marked here in the old copy, but it does

not take place till afterwards: he first whispers Marian, as we are told

immediately, _John_ in the original standing for Little John.

[171] i.e., A collection or company, and not, as we now use the word,

a _kind_ "of fawning sycophants."

[172] i.e., Made a Justice of Peace of him, entitling him to the style

of _Worship_.

[173] [Old copy, _ran_.]

[174] i.e., "I shall _be even_ with you." So Pisaro in Haughton's

"Englishmen for my Money," says of his three daughters--

"Well, I shall find a tune _to meet_ with them."--Sig. E 2.

[175] Alluding to the challenges of the officers who are aiding and

assisting the Sheriff.

[176] Paris Garden (or as it is printed in the old copy, _Parish_

Garden), was a place where bears were baited and other animals kept.

Curtal was a common term for a small horse, and that which Banks owned,

and which acquired so much celebrity for its sagaciousness, is so called

by Webster--

"And some there are

Will keep a _curtal_ to show juggling tricks,

And give out 'tis a spirit."

--"Vittoria Corombona," [Webster's Works, by Hazlitt, ii. 47.]

_Sib is related to_; and perhaps _the ape's only least at Paris Garden_,

may apply to Banks's pony. Dekker, in his "Villanies Discovered," 1620,

mentions in terms "Bankes his Curtal."

[177] In the course of the play John is sometimes called _Earl_ John,

and sometimes _Prince_ John, as it seems, indifferently.

[178] [Old copy, _deceive_.]

[179] It must be recollected that the Queen and Marian have exchanged

dresses.

[180] [Old copy, _must_.]

[181] [Old copy, _sovereign's mother, queen_.]

[182] [Old copy, _cankers_]

[183] [Old copy, _thrust_.]

[184] _Haught_ is frequently used for _haughty_, when the poet wants to

abridge it of a syllable: thus Shakespeare, in "Richard III." act ii.

sc. 3--

"And the queen's sons and brothers _haught_ and proud."

He has also "the _haught_ Northumberland" and "the _haught_ Protector."

Kyd in "Cornelia," act iv., also has this line--

"Pompey, the second Mars, whose _haught_ renown."

[185] [Old copy, _Ah, my good Lord, for, etc_.]

[186] i.e., Shall not _separate_ us till we die. See Gifford's note to

"The Renegado."--Massinger's Works, ii. 136.

[187] _Palliard_ is to be found in Dryden's "Hind and Panther:"

_palliardize_ is not in very common use among our old writers. Dekker,

in his "Bellman of London," 1616, sig. D 2, gives a description of a

_Palliard_. Tuck's exclamation looks as if it were quoted.

[188] In the old copy, Scarlet and Scathlock are also mentioned as

entering at this juncture, but they were on the stage before.

[189] The _mistake_ to which Warman alludes is, that Friar Tuck takes

part with Robin Hood, instead of assisting the Sheriff against him.

[190] This incident, with some variations, is related in the old ballad

of "Robin Hood rescuing the Widow's _three_ sons from the Sheriff, when

going to be executed." See Ritson's "Robin Hood," ii. 151.

[191] The old copy has a blank here; but whether it was so in the

original MS., whether a line has dropped out by accident, or whether it

was meant that Much should be suddenly interrupted by Robin Hood, must

be matter of conjecture.

[192] So printed in the old copy, as if part of some poetical narrative.

[193] i.e., _Gang_. So written by Milton, Jonson, and many of our best

authors.

[194] [Old copy, _all your_.]

[195] [Old copy, _never wife_.]

[196] [Old copy, _in a loath'd_.]

[197] [Own, from the Latin _proprius_.]

[198] _To lie at the ward_ was, and is still, a term in fencing; thus

Fairfax, translating the fight between Tancred and Argantes in the 6th

book of Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered," says--

"Close _at his surest ward_ each champion _lieth_."

--"Godfrey of Bulloigne," 1600.

[199] The _exit_ of Salisbury is not marked, but it of course takes

place here.

[200] It seems singular that the author of this play should confound two

such persons as the Shoemaker of Bradford, who made all comers "vail

their staves," and George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield; yet such is

the case in the text. The exploits of both are celebrated in the play of

"The Pinner of Wakefield" (in Dyce's editions of Greene's Works), which

seems to have been popular. Nevertheless Henslowe in his MSS. speaks of

George-a-Greene as one dramatic piece, and of "The Pinner of Wakefield"

as another, as if they were two distinct heroes. See "Malone's

Shakespeare," by Boswell, iii. 300. Munday also makes Scathlock and

Scarlet two separate persons. [Munday does not confound the Pinder of

Wakefield with the Bradford hero, for he expressly distinguishes between

them; but he errs in giving the latter the name of George-a-Greene.]

[201] To _record_, as applied to birds, is synonymous to the verb to

_sing_: thus in "The Spanish Tragedy," act ii.--

"Hark, madam, how the _birds record_ by night."

Shakespeare so employs the word in his "Two Gentlemen of Verona," act v.

sc. 4, and in the notes upon the passage more than sufficient instances

are collected.

[202] The 4to reads "the lawless _Rener_" [the _n_ being misprinted

for _u_].

[203] _Mort_ was the old cant word for a _wench_, and was synonymous

with _doxy_, which is still sometimes in use. An explanation, for such

as require it, may be found in Dekker'a "Bellman of London," ed. 1616,

sig. N.

[204] Mr Todd, in his "Dictionary," thus explains the word _belive_:

"Speedily, quickly; it is still common in Westmoreland for _presently_,

which sense, implying a little delay, like our expression of _by and

by_, was formerly the general acceptation of the word." Spenser uses it

not unfrequently--

"Perdie, Sir Knight," said then the enchanter _b'live_,

"That shall I shortly purchase to your bond."

--"Faerie Queene," b. ii. c. iii. st. 18.

[205] _Manchet_ is fine white bread: _panis candidior et purior_.

[206] It seems agreed by the commentators on the word _proface_ (which

Shakespeare uses in "Henry IV. Part II.," act v. sc. 3), that it means

in fact what Robin Hood has already said: "Much good may it do you." It

is disputed whether it be derived from the French or the Italian; Mr

Todd gives _prouface_ as the etymology, and Malone _pro vi faccia_, but

in fact they are one and the same. It occurs in "The Widow's Tears," act

iv. sc. 1, where Ero is eating and drinking in the tomb. [Compare Dyce's

"Shakespeare," 1868, Gloss, in v.]

[207] The 4to terms them _poting_ sticks, and so sometimes they were

called, instead of _poking_ sticks. They were used to plait and set

ruffs.

[208] The old copy here repeats, in part, the preceding stage direction,

viz., _Enter Friar like a pedlar, and Jenny_, which must be an error, as

they are already on the stage; in fact, only Sir Doncaster and his armed

followers enter. The _exit_ of Robin Hood, with Marian and Fitzwater, is

not noticed.

[209] i.e., Thrive.

[210] The rhyme is made out by reading _certainly_, but the old copy,

[which is printed as prose.] has it _certain_.

[211] This stage direction, like many others, is not marked.

[212] So in "Henry VI. Part III." act iii. sc. 3: "Did I _impale_ him

with the regal crown?" This use of the word is common.

[213] [Old copy, _light_.]

[214] See Mr Steevens' note on "Henry VIII.," act v. sc. 3.

[215] These two lines clearly belong to the Prior, though the old copy

omits his name before them.

[216] i.e., Vengeance.

[217] [Old copy, _Souldans_.]

[218] In the old copy _soldiour's_.

[219] See Mr Gifford's note (6) to "The Maid of Honour," Massinger's

Works, iii. 47, for an explanation of the origin and use of this

expression of contempt. See also Malone's remarks upon the passage in

"Twelfth Night," act iii. sc. 4: "He is a knight dubb'd with an

unhatch'd rapier and on _carpet_ consideration."

[220] On the standard by which Leicester was attended on his entrance,

no doubt the crest of that family, viz., a bear and ragged staff, was

represented. To this the queen refers when she exclaims--

"Were this _bear_ loose, how he would tear our maws."

[221] [Old copy, _Bear, thou hast_. Leicester was accompanied by his

ancient, whose entrance is marked above.]

[222] _Quite_ is frequently used for _requite_: as in Massinger's "Old

Law," act ii. sc. 2--

"In troth, Eugenia, I have cause to weep too;

But when I visit, I come comfortably,

And look to be so _quited_."

[223] Although the old copy mentions no more at the beginning of this

interview than _Enter Leicester, drum and ancient_, yet according to

this speech he must either have been more numerously attended, or some

of his followers came upon the stage during his dispute with the king

and queen.

[224] The return of Leicester and Richmond, after their _exit_ just

before, is not mentioned in the 4to.

[225] [Old copy, _Come off, off_.]

[226] _Guests_ were often formerly spelt _guess_, whether it were or

were not necessary for the rhyme.

[227] The stage direction in the original is only _Enter Robin_.

[228] This must have been spoken aside to Robin Hood.

[229] [Old copy, _soon_.]

[230] [This passage appears to point to some antecedent drama not at

present known.]

[231] The 4to has it _Damn'd Judaism_, but the allusion is to the

treachery of Judas. The jailer of Nottingham afterwards calls Warman

Judas.

[232] [Old copy, _him_.]

[233] In the old copy this is made a part of what Warman speaks, which

is a mistake, as is evident from the context.

[234] Her _exit_ and re-entrance are not marked in the old copy. Perhaps

she only speaks from a window.

[235] ["A term of contempt," says Halliwell in v.; but does it not

refer strictly to a card-sharper?]

[236] He blunders. Of course he means "when tidings came to his ears."

He does not make much better of his prose.

[237] Current.

[238] This is from the old ballad, "The Jolly Pinder of Wakefield, with

Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John," with variations--

"At Michaelmas next my cov'nant comes out

When every man gathers his fee;

Then I'll take my blue blade all in my hand,

And plod to the greenwood with thee."

--Ritson's "Robin Hood," ii. 18.

[239] It is evident that Friar Tuck here gives John a sword.

[240] [Light, active. See Nares, edit. 1859, in v.]

[241] The origin of _amort_ is French, and sometimes it is written

_Tout-a-la-mort_, as in "The Contention between Liberality and

Prodigality," 1602, sig. B, as pointed out in a note to "Ram Alley."

[242] [Query, best hanged? He refers to the ex-sheriff.]

[243] _Defy_ is here used in the sense of _refuse_, which was not

uncommon: thus in the "Death of Robert Earl of Huntington," we have this

passage, "Or, as I said, for ever I _defy_ your company." In the "Four

'Prentices of London," act i. sc. 1, the old Earl of Boulogne says--

"Vain pleasures I abhor, all things _defy_,

That teach not to despair, or how to die."

Other instances are collected in a note to the words, "I do _defy_ thy

conjuration," from "Romeo and Juliet," act v. sc. 3.

[244] Their entrance is not marked in the original.

[245] [Old copy, _sweet_.]

[246] It will be seen from the introduction to this play, that Munday

and others, according to Henslowe, wrote a separate play under the title

of "The Funeral of Richard Cordelion." [The latter drama was not written

till some months after this and the ensuing piece, and was intended as a

sort of sequel to the plays on the history of Robin Hood.]

[247] Misprinted _Dumwod_ in the old copy.

[248] Two lines in the Epilogue might be quoted to show that only one

author was concerned in it--

"Thus is Matilda's story shown in act,

And rough-hewn out by _an_ uncunning hand."

But probably the assertion is not to be taken strictly; or if it be, it

will not prove that Chettle had no hand, earlier or later, in the

authorship. Mr Gifford in his Introduction to Ford's Works, vol. i.

xvi., remarks very truly, that we are not to suppose from the

combination of names of authors "that they were always simultaneously

employed in the production of the same play;" and Munday, who was

perhaps an elder poet than Chettle, may have himself originally written

both parts of "The Earl of Huntington," the connection of Chettle with

them being subsequent, in making alterations or adapting them to the

prevailing taste.

[249] See "The Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington," _Introd_. pp. 95,

96, ante.

[250] See "Restituta," ii. 367 (note).

[251] "Bibl. Poet." 159. [But see Hazlitt's "Handbook," v. C. II.]

[252] [Henslowe's "Diary," 1845, p. 147. See also Collier's "Memoirs of

the Actors in Shakespeare's Plays," p. 111.]

[253] Introduction to "Downfall of Robert Earl of Huntington," pp. 101,

102.

[254] With the letters R.A. on the title-page. [But surely it is very

doubtful whether the play printed in 1615 (and again in 1663) is the

same as that mentioned by Henslowe.]

[255] [Unless it be the drama printed in 1604 under the title of the

"Wit of a Woman."]

[256] [Possibly a revival, with alterations, of Edwardes' play.]

[257] There is no list of characters prefixed to the old 4to.

[258] i.e., Skelton, who is supposed by the author to have acted the

part of Friar Tuck, and who, when first he comes on the stage, is

without his gown and hood.

[259] [Old copy, _Hurt_. The two are inside plotting together. See

infrâ.]

[260] [The Queen Mother.]

[261] _Wight_ means _active_, or (sometimes) _clever_. It may be matter

of conjecture whether "_white_ boy," "_white_ poet," "_white_ villain,"

&c., so often found in old dramatists, have not this origin.

[262] It is very obvious that Much begins his answer at "Cry ye mercy,

Master King," but his name is omitted in the old 4to.

[263] The old copy adds here _Exeunt_, and a new scene is marked; but

this is a mistake, as Robin Hood just afterwards converses with the

Prior, Sir Doncaster, and Warman, without any new entrance on their

part. They retire to the back of the stage.

[264] Warman is not mentioned, but we find him on the stage just

afterwards, and he probably enters with Robin Hood. The entrance of

Friar Tuck is also omitted.

[265] i.e., Winding his horn.

[266] The 4to, reads "Pity of _mind_, thine," &c.

[267] See the last scene of the first part of this play.

[268] The 4to merely reads _exit_.

[269] "And yet more medicinal is it than that _Moly_

That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave."

--Milton's "Comus."

There are several kinds of moly, and one of them distinguished among

horticulturists as Homer's moly. Sir T. Brown thus quaintly renders two

lines in the "Odyssey" relating to it--

"The gods it _Moly_ call whose root to dig away

Is dangerous unto man, but gods they all things may."

[270] [Displeased.]

[271] [Old copy, _whindling_. See Halliwell, _v. Whimlen_. There is also

_windilling_; but the word is one of those terms of contempt used by

early writers rather loosely.]

[272] These two lines are taken, with a slight change, from the ballad

of "The Jolly Finder of Wakefield." See Ritson's "Robin Hood," ii. 16--

"In Wakefleld there lives a jolly pinder,

In Wakefield all on a green," &c.

[273] [Old copy, _monuments_.]

[274] Ritson ("Notes and Illustrations to Robin Hood," i. 62) observes

correctly that Fitzwater confounds one man with another, and that Harold

Harefoot was the son and successor of Canute the Great.

[275] [Old copy, _them_.]

[276] "_In_ a trice" is the usual expression. See a variety of instances

collected by Mr Todd in his Dictionary, but none of them have it "_with_

a trice," as in this place. The old copy prints the ordinary

abbreviation for _with_, which may have been misread by the printer.

[_With_ is no doubt wrong, and has been altered.]

[277] The scenes are marked, though incorrectly, in the old copy thus

far; but the rest of the play is only divided by the _exits_ or

entrances of the characters.

[278] Jenny, a country wench, uses the old word _straw'd_; but when the

author speaks afterwards in the stage direction, he describes Marian as

"_strewing_ flowers." Shakespeare has _o'er-strawed_ in "Venus and

Adonis," perhaps for the sake of the rhyme.

[279] [i.e., Over.]

[280] [Old copy, _of_.]

[281] Formerly considered an antidote for poison. Sir Thomas Brown was

not prepared to contradict it: he says, that "Lapis Lasuli hath in it a

purgative faculty, we know: that _Bezoar is antidotal_, Lapis Judaicus

diuretical, Coral antipileptical, we will not deny."--"Vulgar Errors,"

edit. 1658, p. 104. He also (p. 205) calls it the _Bezoar nut_, "for,

being broken, it discovereth a kernel of a leguminous smell and taste,

bitter, like a lupine, and will swell and sprout if set in the ground."

Harts-horn shavings were also considered a preservative against poison.

[282] [From what follows presently it may be inferred that the king

temporarily retires, although his exit or withdrawal is not marked.]

[283] The old word for _convent_: Covent-Garden, therefore, is still

properly called.

[284] The _grate_ of a vintner was no doubt what is often termed in old

writers the _red lattice, lettice_, or _chequers_, painted at the doors

of vintners, and still preserved at almost every public-house. See note

24 to "The Miseries of Enforced Marriage."

[285] The 4to reads--

"In the highway

That joineth to the _power_."

[286] Robin Hood advises his uncle to insist upon his plea of

_privilegium clericale_, or benefit of clergy--

"Stand to your clergy, uncle; save your life."

"Originally the law was held that no man should be admitted to the

privilege of clergy, but such as had the _habitum et tonsuram

clericalem_. But in process of time a much wider and more comprehensive

criterion was established; every one that could read (a mark of great

learning in those days of ignorance and her sister superstition) being

accounted a clerk or _clericus_, and allowed the benefit of clerkship,

though neither initiated in holy orders, nor trimmed with the clerical

tonsure."--Blackstone's "Com.," iv. b. iv, ch. 28. We have already seen

that the king and nobles in this play called in the aid of Friar Tuck to

read the inscription on the stag's collar, though the king could

ascertain that it was in Saxon characters.

[287] This account of the death of Robin Hood varies from all the

popular narratives and ballads. The MS. Sloan, 715, nu. 7, f. 157,

agrees with the ballad in Ritson, ii. 183, that he was treacherously

bled to death by the Prioress of Kirksley.

[288] The first act has already occupied too much space, but it was

difficult to divide it: in fact, as Friar Tuck says, it is a "short

play," complete in itself. What follows is an induction to the rest of

the story, the Friar continuing on the stage after the others have gone

out.

[289] The 4to. reads thus--

"Apollo's _master doone_ I invocate,"

but probably we ought to read--

"Apollo's _masterdom_ I invocate,"

and the text has been altered accordingly. _Masterdom_ means _power,

rule_; to invocate Apollo's masterdom is therefore to invocate Apollo's

power to assist the Friar in his undertaking.

[290] _Enter in black_ is the whole of the stage direction, and those

who enter are afterwards designated by the letters _Cho_. Perhaps the

principal performers arrive attired in black, and are mentioned as

_Chorus_, one speaking for the rest. _Cho_. may, however, be a misprint

for _Chester_, who was sent in to "attire him."

[291] [In the new edit. of Nares the present passage is cited for

_ill-part_, which is queried to mean _ill-conditioned_. Perhaps it is

equivalent to _malapert_.]

[292] [Old copy, _de Brun_.] "John married Isabel, the daughter and

heiress of the Earl of Angoulesme, who was before affianced to _Hugh le

Brun_, Earl of March (a peer of great estate and excellence in France),

by the consent of King Richard, in whose custody she then was."

--Daniel's "History of England."

[293] [Old copy, _lose_.]

[294] _Led by the F.K. and L_. means, as afterwards appears, the _French

king_, and _Lord_ Hugh le Brun, Earl of North March.

[295] The entrance of Bonville is omitted in the 4to.

[296] These _Lords_, as we afterwards find, are old Aubrey de Vere,

Hubert, and Mowbray.

[297] [Old copy, _troops_.]

[298] [Old copy, _triumphs_.]

[299] Lodge was in the habit of using the adjective for the substantive,

especially _fair_ for _fairness_; one example is enough--

"Some, well I wot, and of that sum full many,

Wisht or my _faire_ or their desire were lesse."

--_Scilla's Metamorphosis_, 1589.

See also note to "The Wounds of Civil War" (vol. vii. p. 118).

Shakespeare may be cited in many places besides the following--

"My decayed _fair_

A sunny look of his would soon repair."

--_Comedy of Errors_, act ii. sc. 1.

See Steevens's note on the above passage.

[300] The King calls him in the old copy _good Oxford_, but Oxford is

not present, and from what follows we see that the command was given to

Salisbury. The same mistake is again made by Hubert in this scene.

Salisbury must be pronounced _Sal'sb'ry_.

[301] [Accepted.]

[302] [Old copy, _muddy_.]

[303] [A very unusual phrase, which seems to be used here in the sense

of _masculine passions or properties_.]

[304] In the old copy it stands thus--

"Yes, but I do: I think not Isabel, Lord,

The worse for any writing of Brunes."

[In the MS. both Lord and Le were probably abbreviated into L., and

hence the misprint, as well as misplacement, in the first line.]

[305] [i.e., You may count on her wealth as yours. We now say to build

_on_, but to build _of_ was formerly not unusual.]

[306] See the notes of Dr Johnson, Steevens, and other commentators on

the words in the "Comedy of Errors," act ii. sc. 1--"Poor I am but his

_stale_." [See also Dyce's "Shakespeare Glossary," 1868, in v.]

[307] The stage directions are often given very confusedly, and (taken

by themselves) unintelligibly, in the old copy, of which this instance

may serve as a specimen: it stands thus in the 4to--"_Enter Fitzwater

and his son Bruce, and call forth his daughter_."

[308] [A feeder of the Wye. Lewis's "Book of English Rivers," 1855,

p. 212.]

[309] Alluding most likely to the "Andria" of Terence, which had been

translated [thrice] before this play was acted; the first time [in 1497,

again about 1510, and the third time] by Maurice Kiffin in 1588. [The

former two versions were anonymous. See Hazlitt's "Handbook," p. 605.]

[310] _Holidom_ or _halidom_, according to Minsheu (Dict. 1617), is "an

old word used by old country-women, by manner of swearing by my

_halidome_; of the Saxon word _haligdome, ex halig, sanctum_, and _dome,

dominium aut judicium_." Shakespeare puts it into the mouth of the host

in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," act iv. sc. 2.

[311] The entrance of Richmond clearly takes place here, but in the 4to

he is said to come in with Leicester.

[312] [See Hazlitt's "Proverbs," p. 22.]

[313] [In the 4to and former editions this and the following nine words

are given to Richmond.]

[314] Meaning that her father Fitzwater [takes her, she having declined

to pair off with the king.] The whole account of the mask is confused in

the old copy, and it is not easy to make it much more intelligible in

the reprint.

[315] [The proverb is: "There are more maids than Malkin." See Hazlitt's

"Proverbs," p. 392.]

[316] [Old copy, _Had_.]

[317] This line will remind the reader of Shakespeare's "multitudinous

seas incarnardine," in "Macbeth," act ii. sc. 1.

[318] This answer unquestionably belongs to the king, and is not, as the

4to gives it, a part of what Leicester says. It opens with an allusion

to the crest of Leicester, similar to that noticed in the "Downfall of

Robert Earl of Huntington."

[319] [Old copy, _by God's_.]

[320] [Old copy, _armed men_.]

[321] [Old copy, _shall_.]

[322] [An allusion to the proverb.]

[323] This and other passages refer probably to the old play of "King

John," printed in 1591, [or to Shakespeare's own play which, though not

printed till 1623, must have been familiar to the public, and more

especially to dramatic authors.]

[324] In this line; in the old copy, _Salisbury_ is made to call himself

_Oxford_.

[325] The 4to reads _Enter or above Hugh, Winchester. Enter or above_

means, that they may either enter on the stage, or stand above on the

battlements, as may suit the theatre. With regard to the names _Hugh_

and _Winchester_, they are both wrong; they ought to be _Hubert_ and

_Chester_, who have been left by the king to _keep good watch_. When,

too, afterwards Chester asks--

"What, Richmond, will you prove a runaway?"--

the answer in the old copy is--

"From thee, good _Winchester_? now, the Lord defend!"

It ought to be--

"From thee, good _Chester_? now the Lord defend!"

And it is clear that the measure requires it. The names throughout are

very incorrectly given, and probably the printer composed from a copy in

which some alterations had been made in the _dramatis personae_, but

incompletely. Hence the perpetual confusion of _Salisbury_ and _Oxford_.

[326] The scene changes from the outside to the inside of the castle.

[327] [Without muscle, though muscle and bristle are strictly distinct.]

[328] To _tire_ is a term in falconry: from the Fr. _tirer_, in

reference to birds of prey tearing what they take to pieces.

[329] The 4to prints _Ilinnus_.

[330] [Old copy, _a deed_.]

[331] The 4to has it _Elinor_, but it ought to be _Isabel_. The previous

entrance of the Queen and Matilda is not marked.

[332] [_Fairness_, in which sense the word has already occurred in this

piece.]

[333] [i.e., Champion.]

[334] Matilda's name is omitted in the old copy, but the errors of this

kind are too numerous to be always pointed out.

[335] [Old copy, _Triumvirates_.]

[336] Nothing can more clearly show the desperate confusion of names in

this play than this line, which in the 4to stands--

"It's Lord _Hugh Burgh_ alone: _Hughberr_, what newes?"

In many places Hubert is only called _Hugh_.

[337] Company or collection.

[338] _Head of hungry wolves_ is the reading of the original copy: a

"_herd_" of hungry wolves would scarcely be proper, but it may have been

so written. [_Head_ may be right, and we have not altered it, as the

word is occasionally used to signify a gathering or force.]

[339] In the old copy the four following lines are given to King John.

[340] [Old copy, _warres_.]

[341] [Escutcheon.]

[342] [Abided.]

[343] [Old copy, _prepare_.]

[344] This word is found in "Henry VI., Part II." act v. sc. 1, where

young Clifford applies it to Richard. Malone observes in a note, that,

according to Bullokar's "English Expositor," 1616, _stugmatick_

originally and properly signified "a person who has been _branded_ with

a hot iron for some crime." The name of the man to whom Hubert here

applies the word, is _Brand_.

Webster, in his "Vittoria Corombona," applies the term

metaphorically:--

"The god of melancholy turn thy gall to poison,

And let the _stigmatic_ wrinkles in thy face.

Like to the boisterous wares in a rough tide,

One still overtake another."

[345] [Are faulty.]

[346] [Old copy, _seld_.]

[347] [The printer has made havoc with the sense here, which can only be

guessed at from the context. Perhaps for _go_ we should read _God_, in

allusion to the woman's protestations. Yet even then the passage reads

but lamely.]

[348] [_These_ may be right; but perhaps the author wrote _his_. By

his--i.e., God's--nails, is a very common oath.]

[349] [i.e., Mete or measure out a reward to her.]

[350] [To swear by the fingers, or the _ten commandments_, as they were

often called, was a frequent oath.]

[351] [Old copy, _lamback'd_.]

[352] The 4to says, _between the monk and the nun_.

[353] [Query, _mother Bawd_; or is some celebrated procuress of the time

when this play was written and acted meant here?]

[354] To swear by the cross of the sword was a very common practice, and

many instances are to be found in D.O.P. See also notes to "Hamlet," act

i. sc. 5.

[355] i.e., Secretly, a very common application of the word in our old

writers.

[356] [In allusion to the proverb, "Maids say nay, and take."]

[357] Here, according to what follows, Brand steps forward and addresses

Matilda. Hitherto he has spoken _aside_.

[358] See Mr Gilford's note on the words _rouse_ and _carouse_ in his

Massinger, i. 239. It would perhaps be difficult, and certainly

needless, to add anything to it.

[359] "Nor I to stir before I see the end,"

belongs to the queen, unquestionably, but the 4to gives it to the

Abbess, who has already gone out.

[360] [Labour, pain.]

[361] The reading of the old copy is--

"Oh _pity, mourning_ sight! age pitiless!"

_Pity-moving_ in a common epithet, and we find it afterwards in this

play used by young Bruce--

"My tears, my prayers, my _pity-moving_ moans."

[362] [Old copy, _wrath_.]

[363] This servant entered probably just before Oxford's question, but

his entrance is not marked.

[364] To _pash_, signifies to crush or dash to pieces. So in the "Virgin

Martyr," act ii. sc. 2--

"With Jove's artillery, shot down at once,

To _pash_ your gods in pieces."

See Mr Gifford's note upon this passage, and Reed's note on the same

word in "Troilus and Cressida," act ii. sc. 3.

[365] The 4^o has it--

"_May_ an example of it, honest friends;"

but _make_ is certainly the true reading.

[366] _Bannings_ are _cursings_. Hundreds of examples might be added to

those collected by Steevens in a note to "King Lear," act ii. sc. 3. It

is a singular coincidence that _ban_, signifying a _curse_, and _ban_, a

public notice of _marriage_, should have the same origin.

[367] The words, _at one door_, are necessary to make the stage

direction intelligible, but they are not found in the original.

[368] [Here used apparently in the unusual sense of _scene_.]

[369] This line is quoted by Steevens in a note to "Measure for

Measure," act v. sc. 1, to prove that the meaning of _refel_ is

_refute_.

[370] Sir William Blunt's entrance is not marked in the old copy.

[371] To _blin_ is to _cease_, and in this sense it is met with in

Spenser and other poets. Mr Todd informs us that it is still in use in

the north of England. Ben Jonson, in his "Sad Shepherd," converts the

verb into a substantive, "withouten _blin_."

[372] _Powder'd_ is the old word for salted: it is in this sense

Shakespeare makes Falstaff use it, when he says: "If you embowel me

to-day, I'll give you leave to _powder_ me and eat me to-morrow."

[373] i.e., _l'ouvert_ or opening--

"Ne lightned was with window nor with _lover_,

But with continuall candle-light."

--Spenser's "Faerie Queene," b. vi. c. x.

[374] The sense is incomplete here: perhaps a line has been lost, or

Leicester suddenly recollects that Bruce has possession of Windsor

Castle, and warns him not to relinquish it.

[375] An abridgment of _Hubert_, apparently for the sake of the metre.

[376] [i.e., Spleen, indignation.]

[377] In this line there is, in the old copy, a curious and obvious

misprint: it stands in the 4^o--

"She was indeed of _London_ the honour once."

Instead of--

"She was indeed of _love_ the honour once."

The king is translating and commenting on the motto on the pendant, as

is quite evident from the manner in which he proceeds. Besides, the

measure requires a word of one syllable.

[378] [Old copy, _in life_.]

[379] The lords again _stand in council_ as before, while the king fills

up the interval to the audience.

[380] This is probably addressed to the king, with whom Oxford has been

talking.

[381] [Pox].

[382] [Old copy, _had_.]

[383] [Old copy, _hath_.]

[384] [The inn, mentioned in the former scene, must be supposed to

remain, as Tenacity presently goes up to it, and knocks at the gate.]

[385] [Fired?]

[386] [Old copy, _than_.]

[387] [Wretches.]

[388] [Old copy, _Yoo_.]

[389] [Old copy. _That_.]

[390] [Dance.]

[391] [Then.]

[392] [Paltrily.]

[393] A term of contempt for a woman. The hostess has entered the

kitchen of the inn in the cook's absence, and finds matters not quite

satisfactory.

[394] Old copy adds, _and Dandelyne_; but it is evident from the close

of the preceding scene, that the Hostess does not quit the stage.

[395] See Halliwell in v.; but the explanation there given hardly

suits the present context, where the word appears to be used in the

sense of _a term, a period_.

[396] Apparently part of the song; its meaning is not clear.

[397] [Reward].

[398] [Pet.]

[399] [Welcome.]

[400] [This is one of the elegant terms which are exchanged between

Gammer Gurton and Mother Chat.]

[401] [Although Tom is marked in the old copy as entering at the

commencement of the scene, be does not really come in till now.]

[402] [Old copy adds, _and Fortune_; but Fortune does not enter now: she

is in her castle, and presently calls to Vanity from a window.]

[403] [Although it appears from what immediately follows that Vanity had

assembled Fortune's vassals, we are not necessarily to conclude that the

latter enter here. They would rather wait outside.]

[404] [Bull-calf.]

[405] [Orig. reads, _fat fatox_.]

[406] [This seems merely a word coined for the sake of the rhyme.]

[407] [Of courtesy.]

[408] [Swoon.]

[409] [Old copy, _net_.]

[410] [Old copy, _to emloy_.]

[411] [In the old copy this direction is given (very imperfectly) thus:

_The constables make hue and cry_.]

[412] [In the old copy this passage is thus exhibited--

HOST. Where dwell these constables?

CON. Why? what's the matter, friend, I pray?

HOST. Why, thieves, man, I tell thee, come away.

Thieves, i' faith, wife, my scull, my Iacke, my browne bill.

CON. Come away quickly.

HOST. Dick, Tom, Will, ye hoorsons, make ye all ready and haste.

But let me heare, how stands the case? [_A pace after_.

Where the confusion in the distribution of the speeches seems tolerably

evident. The constable made hue and cry, in order to raise the country,

and make a levy of such persons as were bound to assist.

[413] [Old copy, _to_.]

[414] [Old copy, _fasting_.]

[415] [Old copy, _Yes_.]

[416] [Petition.]

[417] [Then, probably, as it certainly was later on, a favourite haunt

of footpads.]

[418] [Pancras.]

[419] [No edition except that of 1662 has yet come to light.]

[420] Nobody who reads this play can doubt that it is much older than

1662, the date borne by the earliest known edition of it. It has every

indication of antiquity, and the title not the least of these. "Grim,

the Collier of Croydon," is a person who plays a prominent character in

the humorous portion of Edwards's "Damon and Pithias," which was printed

in 1571, and acted several years earlier. The Grim of the present play

is obviously the same person as the Grim of "Damon and Pithias," and in

both he is said to be "Collier for the king's own Majesty's mouth."

Chetwood may therefore be right when he states that it was printed in

1599; but perhaps that was not the first edition, and the play was

probably acted before "Damon and Pithias" had gone quite out of memory.

In the office-book of the Master of the Revels, under date of 1576, we

find a dramatic entertainment entered, called "The Historie of the

Colyer," acted by the Earl of Leicester's men; but it was doubtless

Ulpian Fulwell's "Like will to Like, quod the Devil to the Colier,"

printed in 1568. The structure, phraseology, versification, and language

of "Grim, the Collier of Croydon," are sufficient to show that it was

written before 1600: another instance to prove how much the arrangement

of the plays made by Mr Reed was calculated to mislead. Some slight

separate proofs of the age of this piece are pointed out in the new

notes; but the general evidence is much more convincing. The

versification is interlarded with rhymes like nearly all our earlier

plays, and the blank verse is such as was written before Marlowe's

improvements had generally been adopted. When the play was reprinted in

1662, some parts of it were perhaps a little modernised. The

introduction of Malbecco and Paridell into it, from Spenser's "Faerie

Queene," may be some guide as to the period when the comedy was first

produced.--_Collier_. [The play has now, for the first time, been placed

in its true chronological rank.]

[421] See note to "Gammer Gurton's Needle" [iii. 245].

[422] The story of this play is taken in part from Machiavel's

"Belphegor."--_Pegge_.

The excellent translation of this humorous old story by Mr T. Roscoe

("Italian Novelists," ii. 272) will enable the reader to compare the

play with it. He will find that in many parts the original has been

abandoned, and the catastrophe, if not entirely different, is brought

about by different means. The "Biographia Dramatica" informs us that

Dekker's "If it be not Good the Devil is in it" is also chiefly taken

from the same novel; but this is an error arising out of a hint by

Langbaine. Dekker's play is the famous history of Friar Rush in many of

its incidents.--_Collier_.

[423] [He was _born_ at or near Glastonbury in 925. See Wright's "Biog.

Brit. Lit.," Anglo-Saxon period, p. 443, et seq.]

[424] "Legenda Aurea, or the Golden Legend," translated out of the

French, and printed by Caxton in folio, 1483.

[425] In the old copy it is printed _Tortass_, but it means _portass,

portesse_, or _portace_, the breviary of the Roman Catholic Church.

Thus, in Greene's "Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay"--

"I'll take my _portace_ forth, and wed you here."

Spenser uses the word, "Faerie Queene," b. i. c. iv.--

"And in his hand his _portesse_ still he bare

That much was worne," &c.

See also note to "New Custom" [iii. 24].--_Collier_.

[426] [Old copy and former edits., _Dunston's_.]

[427] See the story of Malbecco in Spenser's "Faerie Queene," b. iii. c.

ix., &c.

[428] The old copy has it _reap_, but probably we ought to read _heap_;

to _reap an endless catalogue_ is hardly sense.--_Collier_.

[429] _Cleped_ is _called, named_. So in Milton's "L'Allegro," i. 11--

"But come, thou goddess fair and free,

In heaven _yclep'd_ Euphrosyne."

[430] _Colling_ is embracing round the neck. _Dare Brachia cervici_, as

Baret explains it in his "Alvearie," voce _colle_. The word is

frequently to be found in ancient writers. So in Erasmus' "Praise of

Follie," 1549, sig. B 2: "For els, what is it in younge babes that we

dooe kysse go, we doe _colle_ so; we do cheryshe so, that a very enemie

is moved to spare and succour this age." In "Wily Beguiled," 1606: "I'll

clasp thee, and clip thee; _coll thee_, and kiss thee, till I be better

than nought, and worse than nothing." In "The Witch," by Middleton--

"When hundred leagues in aire we feast and sing,

Daunce, kysse, and _coll_, use everything."

And in Breton's "Woorkes of a Young Wit," 1577, p. 37--

"Then for God's sake, let young folkes _coll_ and kisse,

When oldest folkes will thinke it not amisse."

[431] Old copy, _upon_.

[432] So in Ben Jonson's "Catiline," act iv. sc. 3--

"I have those eyes and ears shall still keep guard

And _spial_ on thee, as they've ever done,

And thou not feel it."

And in Ascham's "Report and Discourse of the State of Germany," p. 31:

"He went into France secretly, and was there with Shirtly as a common

launce knight, and named hymselfe Captaine Paul, lest the Emperours

_spials_ should get out hys doynges."

[433] In the county of Essex, the mother-church of Harwich. "In the same

yeare of our Lord 1582 there was an Idoll named _The Roode of

Dovercourt_, whereunto was much and great resort of people. For at that

time there was a great rumour blown abroad amongst the ignorant sort,

that the power of _The Idoll of Dovercourt_ was so great that no man had

power to shut the church doore where he stood, and therefore they let

the church dore, both night and day, continually stand open, for the

more credit unto the blinde rumour."--Fox's "Martyrs," ii. 302. This is

the account given by Fox of this celebrated image; who adds that four

men, determining to destroy it, travelled ten miles from Dedham, where

they resided, took away the Rood and burnt it, for which act three of

them afterwards suffered death.

[434] Old copy, _way_.--_Pegge_.

[435] A play on the double meaning of the word, an old game and the act

of kissing.

[436] [Obtain.]

[437] [Old copy, and former edits., _bear_.]

[438] See note to "Gammer Gurton's Needle" [ii. 202].

[439] In 1662, when this play was either first printed or reprinted, it

would have been absurd to talk of _America_ as _new_ or newly

discovered.--_Collier_.

[440] [This passage reminds us of No. 60 in "A C. Mery Talys," Hazlitt's

"Jest Books," i. 87.]

[441] See note to "Damon and Pithias" [iv. 21].

[442] Old copy, _work_.--_Pegge_.

[443] i.e., O Lord.

[444] i.e., So happen in the issue. So in Ben Jonson's "New Inn," act

iv. sc. 4--

"You knew well

It could not _sort_ with any reputation

Of mine."

And in Massinger's "Maid of Honour," act ii. sc. 1--

"All _sorts_ to my wishes."

[445] Old copy, _for_.--_Pegge_.

[446] i.e., _As lief they as I_. So in "Eastward Hoe:" "I'd as _live_ as

anything I could see his farewell."--_Collier_.

[447] It is observed by Dr Warburton (note on "Romeo and Juliet," act i.

sc. 1), that to _carry coals_ was a phrase formerly in use to signify

_bearing of injuries_; and Dr Percy has given several instances in proof

of it. To those may be added the following from Ben Jonson's "Every Man

out of his Humour," act v. sc. 3: "Take heed, Sir Puntarvolo, what you

do; _he'll bear no coals_, I can tell you, o' my word."

[448] i.e., Akercock, as he is called in the preceding scenes. See a

later note to this play [p. 442 _infrâ_].--_Collier_.

[449] _Suppose_ is here used in the sense of _conjecture_ or

_apprehension_. Gascoigne translated a comedy of Ariosto, and called it

"The Supposes." The employment of the verb for the substantive in the

present instance is an evidence of the antiquity of this play. The

following parallel is from Gascoigne's Prologue: "The verye name wherof

may peraduenture driue into euerie of your heades, a sundrie _Suppose_,

to _suppose_ the meaning of our _supposes_."--_Collier_.

[450] i.e., Plot or contrivance. Tarlton produced a piece called "The

Plat-form of the Seven Deadly Sins;" and in "Sir J. Oldcastle," by

Drayton and others, first printed in 1600, it is used with the same

meaning as in the text, viz., a contrivance for giving effect to the

conspiracy.

"There is the _plat-form_, and their hands, my lord,

Each severally subscribed to the same."

--_Collier_.

[451] [A common proverb.]

[452] [The ordinary proverb is, "The devil is _good_ when he is

pleased."]

[453] The Italian for _How do you do_?

[454] _Skinker_ was a _tapster_ or _drawer_. Prince Henry, in "The First

Part of Henry IV." act ii. sc. 4, speaks of an _underskinker_, meaning

an _underdrawer_. Mr Steevens says it is derived from the Dutch word

_schenken_, which signifies to fill a cup or glass. So in G. Fletcher's

"Russe Commonwealth," 1591, p. 13, speaking of a town built on the south

side of Moscow by Basilius the emperor, for a garrison of soldiers, "to

whom he gave priviledge to drinke mead and beer, at the drye or

prohibited times, when other Russes may drinke nothing but water, and

for that cause called this newe citie by the name of Naloi, that is,

_skinck_, or _poure in_." Again, in Marston's "Sophonisba," iii. 2--

"Ore whelme me not with sweets, let me not drink,

Till my breast burst, O Jove, thy nectar _skinke_."

And in Ben Jonson's "Poetaster," act iv. sc. 5--

"ALB. I'll ply the table with nectar, and make 'em friends.

"HER. Heaven is like to have but a lame _skinker_."

And in his "Bartholomew Fair," act ii. sc. 2: "Froth your cans well i'

the filling, at length, rogue, and jog your bottles o' the buttock,

sirrah; then _skink_ out the first glass ever, and drink with all

companies."

[455] Suspicion.

[456] [Be in accord with reason.]

[457] [Old copy, _call'st_.]

[458] Similar to this description is one in Marlowe's "Edward II.," act

i.

[459] Old copy, _are_.

[460] [Old copy, _knew_.]

[461] See note to "Cornelia" [v. 188].

[462] In Shakespeare's "Coriolanus," Sicinius asks Volumnia, "Are you

mankind?" On which Dr Johnson remarks that "_a mankind woman_ is a woman

with the roughness of a man; and, in an aggravated sense, a woman

_ferocious, violent, and eager to shed blood_." Mr Upton says _mankind_

means _wicked_. See his "Remarks on Ben Jonson," p. 92. The word is

frequently used to signify _masculine_. So in [Beaumont and Fletcher's]

"Love's Cure; or, The Martial Maid," act iv. sc. 2--

"From me all _mankind_ women learn to woo."

In Dekker's "Satiromastix"--

"My wife's a woman; yet

'Tis more than I know yet, that know not her;

If she should prove _mankind_, 'twere rare; fie! fie!"

And in Massinger's "City Madam," act ii. sc. 1--

"You brach,

Are you turn'd _mankind_?"

[463] [Old copy, _strumpets_.]

[464] Whether I will or not. This mode of expression is often found in

contemporary writers. So in Dekker's "Bel-man of London," sig. F 3:

"Can by no meanes bee brought to remember this new friend, yet _will

hee, nill he_, to the taverne he sweares to have him."

It may be worth remark that it is also found in "Damon and Pithias,"

from which the character of Grim is taken.

[465] [Old copy, _reake_.]

[466] Sometimes called _Pucke_, alias _Hobgoblin_. In the creed of

ancient superstition he was a kind of merry sprite, whose character and

achievements are recorded in a ballad printed in Dr Percy's "Reliques of

Ancient Poetry." [See "Popular Antiquities of Great Britain," iii. 39,

et seq.]

[467] Pretty or clever. So in Warner's "Albion's England," b. vi. c. 31,

edit. 1601--

"There was a _tricksie_ girl, I wot, albeit clad in gray."

The word is also used in Shakespeare's "Tempest," act v. sc. 1. See Mr

Steevens's note thereon.

[468] This is one of the most common, and one of the oldest, proverbs in

English. Ulpian Fulwell['s play upon it has been printed in our third

volume.] It is often met with in our old writers, and among others, in a

translation from the French, printed in 1595, called, "A pleasant Satyre

or Poesie, wherein is discovered the Catholicon of Spain," &c., the

running title being "A Satyre Menippized." It is to be found on pp. 54

and 185. Having mentioned this tract, we may quote, as a curiosity, the

following lines, which probably are the original of a passage for which

"Hudibras" is usually cited as the authority--

"Oft he that doth abide

Is cause of his own paine;

But he that flieth in good tide

Perhaps may fight againe."

--_Collier_.

[469] [A word unnoticed by Nares and Halliwell. The latter cites

_haust_, high, doubtless from the French _haut_. So _hauster_ may be the

comparative, and signify higher.]

[470] Till now printed _Puzzles_ as if because it had puzzled Dodsley

and Reed to make out the true word. In the old copy it stands _Puriles_;

and although it may seem a little out of character for Grim to quote

Latin, yet he does so in common with the farmer in Peele's "Edward I.,"

and from the very same great authority. "'Tis an old saying, I remember

I read it in Cato's '_Pueriles_' that _Cantabit vacuus coram latrone

viator_," &c.--_Collier_. [The work referred to in the text was called

"Pueriles Confabulatiunculae; or, Children's Talke," of which no early

edition is at present known. But it is mentioned in "Pappe with an

Hatchet" (1589), and in the inventory of the stock of John Foster, the

York bookseller (1616).]

[471] Head. See note to "Gammer Gurton's Needle" [iii. 242].

[472] Shall never cease, stop, or leave of. So in Ben Jonson's "Staple

of News," Intermean after 4th act--

"He'll never _lin_ till he be a gallop."

Mr Whalley proposes to read _blin_. "The word," says he, "is Saxon, and

the substantive _blin_, derived from _blinnan_, occurs in the 'Sad

Shepherd.' Yet the word occurs in Drayton in the sense of stopping or

staying, as it is used here by our poet--

"'Quoth Puck, my liege, I'll never _lin_,

Hut I will thorough thick and thin.'

"--'Court of Fairy.' So that an emendation may be unnecessary, and _lin_,

the same as _leave_, might have been in common use."

The latter conjecture is certainly right, many instances maybe produced.

As in "The Return from Parnassus," act iv. sc. 3--

"Fond world, that ne'er think'st on that aged man,

That Ariosto's old swift-paced man,

Whose name is Time, who never _lins_ to run,

Loaden with bundles of decayed names."

In "A Chast Mayd in Cheapside," by Middleton: "You'll never _lin_ 'till

I make your tutor whip you; you know how I serv'd you once at the free

schoole in Paul's Church Yard." And in, "More Dissemblers besides

Women," by the same, act iii. sc. I: "You nev'r _lin_ railing on me,

from one week's end to another." [_Lin_ is common enough in the old

romances.]

[473] See [Dyce's "Middleton," iii. 97, and] Note 20 to the "Match at

Midnight."--_Collier_.

[474] This must have been addressed to the audience, and may be adduced

as some slight evidence of the antiquity of the play, as in later times

dramatists were not guilty of this impropriety. The old morality of "The

Disobedient Child" has several instances of the kind; thus, the son says

to the spectators--

"See ye not, my maysters, my fathers advyse?

Have you the lyke at any time harde?"

Again, the Man-cook--

"Maysters, this woman did take such assaye,

And then in those dayes so applyed her booke."

--_Collier_ [ii. 276, 284].

[475] See Note 25 to "Ram Alley."--_Collier_. [In "Romeo and Juliet,"

i. 3, the Nurse says, "Nay, I do bear a brain," i.e., I do bear in mind,

or recollect (Dyce's edit. 1868, vi. 398). Reed's explanation, adopted

by Dyce, seems hardly satisfactory.]

[476] See note to "Gammer Gorton's Needle," iii. 205. Query, if the

passages there quoted may not refer to this very character of Akercock

and his dress, as described in act i. sc. 1.--_Collier_. [Probably not,

as this play can hardly have been in existence go early, and the

character and costume of Robin Goodfellow were well understood, even

before "Gammer Gurton's Needle" was written.]

[477] So in "The Return from Parnassus," act v. sc. 4--

"I'll make thee run this lousy case, _I wis_."

And again in Massinger's "City Madam," act iv. sc. 4--

"Tis more comely,

_I wis_, than their other whim-whams."

[478] "He had need of a long spoon that eats with the devil," is a

proverbial phrase. See [Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 176.] So

Stephano, in the "Tempest," act ii. sc. 2, alluding to this proverb,

says, "This is a devil, and no monster: I will leave him; I have no

_long spoon_." See also "Comedy of Errors," act iv. sc. 3, and Chaucer's

"Squier's Tale," v. 10916--

"Therefore behoveth him a _ful long spone_,

That shall ete with a fiend."

[479] [To vomit. One of the jests of Scogin relates how that celebrated

individual "told his wife he had _parbraked_ a crow"--a story which

occurs in the "Knight of the Tour-Landry" (Wright's edit., p. 96). See

also Fry's "Bibl. Memoranda," 1816, p. 337. A note in edition 1825

says:] This is a word which I apprehend is very seldom found in writers

subsequent to the year 1600. It is used by Skelton, and sometimes by

Spenser. See Todd's "Johnson's Dict."

[480] [Old copy, _He falls_; but Akercock evidently disappears

simultaneously.]

[481] [Old copy, _names_.]

[482] [Old copy, _song_.]