How a Gallant is to behaue himselfe passing through the
Cittie, at all houres of the night, and how to passe by any
watch.
AFTER the sound of pottle-pots is out of your eares,
and that the spirit of Wine and Tobacco walkes in
your braine, the Tauerne door being shut vppon
your backe, cast about to passe through the widest
and goodliest streetes in the Cittie. And if your
meanes cannot reach to the keeping of a boy, hire
one of the drawers, to be as a lanthorne vnto your
feete, and to light you home: and, still as you
approch neere any night-walker that is vp as late as
yourselfe curse and swear (like one that speaks hie
dutch) in a lofty voice, because your men haue vsd
you so like a rascoll in not waiting vpon you, and
vow the next morning to pull their blew cases ouer
their eares, though, if your chamber were well searcht,
you giue onely six pence a weeke to some old woman
to make your bed, and that she is all the seruing-creatures
you giue wages to. If you smell a watch
(and that you may easily doe, for commonly they
eate onions to keep them in sleeping, which they
account a medicine against cold) or, if you come
within danger of their browne bils, let him that is
your candlestick, and holds vp your torch from dropping
(for to march after a linck is shoomaker-like),
let _Ignis Fatuus_, I say, being within the reach of the
Constables staffe, aske aloud, _Sir Giles_, or _Sir
Abram_, will you turne this way, or downe that
streete? It skils not, though there be none dubd
in your Bunch; the watch will winke at you, onely
for the loue they beare to armes and knighthood:
mary, if the Centinell and his court of Guard stand
strictly vpon his martiall Law and cry stand, c[=o]manding
you to giue the word, and to shew reason why
your Ghost walkes so late, doe it in some Jest (for
that will shew you haue a desperate wit, and perhaps
make him and his halberdiers afraid to lay fowle
hands vpon you) or, if you read a mittimus in the
Constables booke, counterfeit to be a Frenchman, a
Dutchman, or any other nation whose country is in
peace with your owne; and you may passe the pikes:
for beeing not able to vnderstand you, they cannot
by the customes of the Citie take your examination,
and so by consequence they haue nothing to say to
you.
If the night be old, and that your lodging be
some place into which no Artillery of words can
make a breach, retire, and rather assault the dores of
your punck, or (not to speak broken English) your
sweete mistris, vpon whose white bosome you may
languishingly consume the rest of darknesse that is
left, in rauishing (though not restoratiue) pleasures,
without expenses, onely by vertue of foure or fiue
oathes (when the siege breakes vp, and at your
marching away with bag and baggage) that the last
night you were at dice, and lost so much in gold, so
much in siluer; and seeme to vex most that two
such _Elizabeth_ twenty-shilling peeces, or foure such
spur-ryals (sent you with a cheese and a bakt meate
from your mother) rid away amongst the rest. By
which tragicall yet pollitick speech, you may not only
haue your nighte worke done _Gratis_, but also you
may take dyet there the next day, and depart with
credit, onely upon the bare word of a Gentleman to
make her restitution.
All the way as you passe (especially being approcht
neere some of the Gates) talk of none but Lords, and
such Ladies with whom you haue plaid at _Primero_,
or daunced in the Presence the very same day. It
is a chaunce to lock vp the lippes of an inquisitiue
Bel-man: and being arriued at your lodging doore,
which I would councell you to choose in some rich
Cittizens house, salute at parting no man but by the
name of Sir (as though you had supt with Knights)
albeit you had none in your company but your
_Perinado_, or your _Inghle_.
Happily it will be blowne abroad, that you and
your Shoale of Gallants swum through such an Ocean
of wine, that you danced so much money out at
heeles, and that in wild-foule there flew away thus
much: and I assure you, to haue the bill of your
reckoning lost of purpose, so that it may be publisht,
will make you to be held in deere estimation: onely
the danger is, if you owe money, and that your reuealing
gets your Creditors by the eares; for then looke to
haue a peal of ordinance thundring at your chamber
doore the next morning. But if either your Tailor,
Mercer, Haberdasher, Silkeman, Cutter, Linen Draper,
or Sempster, stand like a guard of _Switzers_ about
your lodging, watching your vprising, or, if they misse
of that, your down lying in one of the Counters, you
haue no meanes to auoid the galling of their small-shot,
then by sending out a light-horseman to call
your Apotecary to your aide, who, encountring this
desperate band of your Creditors, onely with two or
three glasses in his hand, as though that day you
purgd, is able to driue them all to their holes like
so many Foxes: for the name of taking physicke is
a sufficient _Quietus est_ to any endangered Gentleman,
and giues an acquittance (for the time) to them all,
though the twelue Companies stand with their hoods
to attend your comming forth and their Officers with
them.
I could now fetch you about noone (the houre
which I prescribed you before to rise at) out of your
chamber, and carry you with mee into _Paules Church-yard_;
where planting your selfe in a Stationers shop,
many instructions are to bee giuen you, what bookes
to call for, how to censure of new bookes, how to
mew at the old, how to looke in your tables and
inquire for such and such _Greeke_, _French_, _Italian_, or
_Spanish_ Authors, whose names you haue there, but
whom your mother for pitty would not giue you so
much wit as to vnderstand. From thence you should
blow your selfe into the Tobacco-Ordinary, where
you are likewise to spend your iudgment (like a
_Quack-saluer_) vpon that mysticall wonder, to bee able
to discourse whether your _Cane_ or your Pudding be
sweetest, and which pipe has the best boare, and
which burnes black, which breakes in the burning,
&c. Or, if you itch to step into the Barbers, a
whole _Dictionary_ cannot afford more words to set
downe notes what _Dialogues_ you are to maintaine
whilest you are Doctor of the Chaire there. After
your shauing, I could breath you in a _Fence-schoole_,
and out of that cudgell you into a _Dauncing schoole_,
in both which I could weary you, by shewing you
more tricks then are in fiue galleries, or fifteen prizes.
And, to close vp the stomach of this feast, I could
make Cockneies, whose fathers haue left them well,
acknowledge themselues infinitely beholden to me,
for teaching them by familiar demonstration how to
spend their patrimony and to get themselues names,
when their fathers are dead and rotten. But lest
too many dishes should cast into a surfet, I will now
take away; yet so that, if I perceiue you relish this
well, the rest shall be (in time) prepared for you.
_Fare-well._
NOTES
P. 2.
_The Rubie._--This is the famous and characteristic note of
Euphuism--the accumulation of similes from natural history,
or what was taken for natural history. It can hardly be necessary
to take note of each of these; still less of the abundant
classical allusions which any one acquainted with the classics
will understand at once, and which could only be explained to
others by loading these notes with lumps of Lemprière. Nor
will any one find much difficulty in the language if he remembers
that 'then' and 'than,' 'there' and 'their,' 'wayed' and
'weighed,' were written, or at least printed, in those days
according to the liberal standard of the taste and fancy of the
speller. In case of any difficulty, reading the word aloud
will generally solve it. In a few instances, however, it may be
well to gloss a little more specially.
_M._--I am not sure what this abbreviates. 'Master,' for
which it is the commonest sign, would do.
_Oftscome_ = 'off-scum,' 'off-scouring.'
P. 3.
_Find faulte_ is rather a loss: it is better than 'fault-finder.'
_Closset._--This refers to the famous copy of Homer called
[Greek: ê ek tou narthêkos], which Alexander carried about with him in a
sumptuous _narthex_--a portable medicine-case.
_Bourde_ = 'jest.'
P. 5.
_Parson_ and 'person,' interchangeably.
_Cirpo_, rather _scirpo_.
P. 6.
_Denocated._--A mistake for either 'denotated' or 'devocated,'
both possible and easily intelligible words.
_Werish_ = 'wersh,' 'weak,' 'sickly.'
P. 7.
_Predictam_ of course should be _praeditam_.
_Presisnes_, for 'preciseness,' is a good example of the quaint
tricks played by phonetics.
P. 8.
_Gale_ = gall = (in next line) _fel_.
_Player._--Before his 'conversion' Gosson had himself had
much to do with the theatre.
P. 11.
_Plotinus._--Either Lodge or his printer has made nonsense
of this. For 'Plotinus' read 'Plautus.'
P. 12.
_Saphier._--Evident misprint for 'Sapphic.'
P. 16.
The quotation has been set right in some obvious matters,
though not materially altered. In the second line of the English
version 'with' should no doubt be 'which,' 'wh.' being
the abbreviation for both.
P. 17.
Tyrtæus may perhaps be hid to some under his disguise of
_Tirtheus_, which on p. 20 becomes _Tirthetus_.
P. 18.
_Quinque_ for _quique_ is very funny.
P. 19.
_Stare_ = 'star,' 'mole.'
P. 20.
_Acuate_ = 'sharpened,' 'spurred on.'
P. 22.
It is noteworthy that Lodge is much more eloquent and
much more urgent in defence of music than of poetry, and
indeed the _melomania_ of the Elizabethans is well known.
P. 25.
_Buggs_ = 'bugbears.'
_Pavions_ = 'pavone' or 'pavine,' the well-known stately
'peacock-dance' of the time.
_Dump._--Not merely as now used, 'a fit of melancholy,' but
'a melancholy tune,' and even a dance.
P. 33.
_Your (Gosson) for exempting._--'Your' may be mere carelessness
for 'you,' or Lodge may have at one time meant to
write, 'your exempting yourself.'
P. 38.
Last line of quotation of course _contemnas_ and _nam_.
P. 41.
Probably the printer gave _Silius Italicus_ his _v_.
P. 44.
_Pappe with an hatchet_ has been much discussed. The sense,
which is not unlike 'giving him his gruel,' is clear enough, and
any number of explanations of the form occur.
_Patch._ Cf. Shylock's 'The _patch_ is kindly.'
P. 45.
_Huffe, Ruffe, and Snuffe._--Characters in Preston's _Cambyses_.
It cannot be necessary to annotate each of the plays on words
of which "grating" for "greeting" is the first, and which
occur throughout.
P. 46.
_Ale dagger_, may refer to the custom of drinking with swords
on the table.
P. 47.
_Scaddle_ is unannotated by Mr. Maskell, and does not appear
in other dictionaries, even in that of Professor Skeat. But that
excellent scholar, with his usual kindness, has given me a note
on it. It is the A.S. _scadol_ from 'scathe,' and means 'mischievous,'
with a secondary sense of 'thievish,' and a tertiary
one of 'timid' or 'skulking.' It is here probably used in a
combination of all these.
_Dydoppers_ = 'didappers,' 'dabchicks.'
P. 51.
_Bastard_ senior and junior are polite references to _Martin_
senior and _Martin_ junior, two of the pseudonyms set to the
Marprelate pamphlets.
P. 52.
_Elderton._--A theatrical manager.
P. 53.
_Three a vies._--A 'vie' is a single stake or game at cards,
or anything else. 'Three a vies' therefore equals our 'best of
three.' 'Passage,' a game with dice. 'Stabbing' was a form
of cogging. 'Cater-tray,' four and three. 'Cater-caps,'
trencher-caps.
P. 54.
_Dicker of leather._--A bundle of ten skins.
_Woodsere._--Probably, as Mr. Maskell suggests, the sap that
sputters from green faggots.
P. 56.
_Lambacke_ = 'thrash.'
P. 58.
_Bull._--Perhaps the hangman.
P. 64.
_Aptots_ = 'Indeclinables.'
P. 65.
_Næme_, also 'eme' or 'eame' = 'uncle.'
P. 66.
_Kixes_ or kexes.--Dry stalks of hemlock.
P. 68.
_Pistle._--The common shortened form for 'epistle' much
used by the Martinists.
P. 71.
_Liripoope._--The _liripipium_, or long academic hood.
_Chiuerell_ = 'doe-leather.'
P. 72.
_Comedies._--Anti-Martinist plays are known to have existed,
but are quite lost.
P. 76.
_Muzroule_ or musroule.--A nose-band.
_Port mouth._--I presume a kind of twitch.
_Mubble fubbles_ = 'dumps,' 'blues.'
P. 77.
_Hauncing_ = 'tipping.'
P. 79.
_Celarent_ and _ferio_.--This play on the _memoria technica_ of
logical mood and figure is ingenious.
_Ora whine meg._--Sometimes given as 'Over a whinny meg.'
Name of a tune.
P. 80.
_Bullen._--A vigorous pamphleteer of the preceding age.
P. 84.
Title. _Wit and Will_ is the first of the 'five discourses.'
Below, in the second motto, 'Vir_e_s' should of course be 'vir_u_s,'
being no doubt a mere misprint.
P. 86.
_Gods forbod._--Dr. Grosart 'forbobod,' which appears a
_vox nihili_. 'Past all gods forbod' seems to be pretty much = our
'past all praying for.'
P. 88.
_Then_ (as constantly and not to be noticed hereafter) = 'than.'
P. 90.
_Byrd._ Apparently not in the sense in which 'byrd' or 'burd'
is used by the ballad poets, for that is always of a girl, and
Will is 'he.'
P. 100.
_Buts length._--The ordinary distance between targets.
_Flights shotte._--As far as the bow will carry.
P. 102.
_Wood_ = 'mad.'
P. 109.
Will's Latin here and elsewhere is a good deal better than
his modern languages.
P. 111.
_Corsi[v]e_ = 'corrosive,' something that frets and worries.
P. 116.
_Vir esset_, for _virescit_ apparently.
P. 134.
_Labra_, copies _labe_; either a mere misprint or a blunder for
_labea_ = _labia_, regardless of the verse. Latin is often very carelessly
printed in these tracts.
P. 135.
_Gray_ = 'badger,' from its colour.
P. 136.
_Wearied._--'Weary' and 'worry' have no real connection,
but the former is close in spelling and sound to 'wirian,' the
O.E. form of the latter.
P. 141.
_Tables_ = 'backgammon.'
P. 148.
_Nips_, etc., cant names for different classes of sharpers and
thieves.
P. 149.
_Ball._--Said to be a play on the proper name of Greene's
mistress and her brother.
P. 150.
_Place_ = '_locus_,' text or citation.
P. 155.
The allotment and discussion of the parts in this tirade as
belonging to Marlowe and others of the earlier contemporaries
of Shakespeare have employed much ink, and need no more.
P. 156.
_Young Iuuenall_ is apparently Lodge: 'thou no lesse deseruing'
Peele.
P. 166.
_Barnabe Barnes_, the author of _Parthenophil and Parthenophe_,
was no despicable minor poet; the others were less known to
fame, and a future page (175) tells most that is known about
them.
P. 175.
_Clarentius_ = 'Clarencieux.'?
P. 187.
_Exitat_ = 'excitate,' incite.
P. 188.
_Ale cunners._--'Conners or kenners,' the official inspectors of
Beer.
P. 192.
A _reache_ is an advantage. By 'fiue and a reache,' either
card and dice sharping or pocket-picking must be meant.
P. 193.
_Pullin_ = 'poultry.'
P. 194.
_Hoffes_ = '_hof_,' house.
P. 195.
Here Nash takes his customary side in the Marprelate
business.
P. 196.
_Ram Alley_, the great locality for cook-shops.
P. 198.
The _Old Swanne_, still known on the river as a pier and
starting-place.
P. 199.
_Heart at grasse_ = 'heart of grace.'
_Lambeake._ The simple verb 'lam,' surviving in 'lam into
him,' had divers compounds--'lambaste,' 'lambeak,' (_v. ante_)
and the like.
P. 202.
A return to the Martinists _dunstable_--as in 'Downright Dunstable.'
P. 205.
_Duke Humfrye_ habitually entertained his guests in St. Paul's.
P. 208.
_Cataphalusie_ is, I suppose, a coined word with no special
meaning.
P. 212.
Full information about _Grobianisme_ may be found in Chapter
VII. of Mr. Herford's excellent _Literary Relations of England
and Germany in the 16th Century_. Cambridge: 1886.
P. 215.
_Kelly_ succeeded Dee as an alchemist.
P. 216.
For the _Ship of Fooles_, as Alexander Barclay Englished
Sebastian Brant's _Narrenschiff_, see Mr. Herford _op. cit._
_Like Biasse_ = 'crookedly'?
P. 217.
_Tarleton_, etc.,--actors.
P. 221.
_Bootes._--For the proper and original meaning of 'boot' see
the opening chapter of _Old Mortality_.
P. 223.
_Voyder._--The tray for sweeping off crumbs, fragments, etc.,
from the table.
P. 230.
_Vaunt-currers_ = 'avant-couriers.'
P. 231.
_Platoes cocke._--It was rather Diogenes's--his unfeeling jest
on the 'unfeathered, two-legged animal' definition of Man.
P. 232.
_Babiownes_ = 'baboon.'
_Mandilions._--A kind of monkey.
P. 234.
_Strawling_ = 'straddling.'
P. 242.
The _Duke_, of course Humfrye.
P. 244.
_Cipers_ = 'cyprus,' crape.
P. 246.
_Horse._--Banks's Morocco, frequent in Elizabethan mouths.
P. 273.
_Perinado_, guessed to = "parasite" "dinner-hunter." _Inghle_
= "crony."
END
End of Project Gutenberg's Elizabethan and Jacobean Pamphlets, by Various