A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume I Part 86

"I have made a modest choice of you, grave sir, To be my ghostly father; and to you I _fall_ for absolution."

288. The commencement of this Act is not marked in the original, although notice is given of its conclusion.--_Collier_.

289. This scriptural expression occurs very frequently in our ancient dramatic writers--

"Never this heart shall have the thoughtful dread _To die the death_ that, by your grace's doom, By just desert shall be p.r.o.nounc'd to me."

--_Ferrex and Porrex_, A. 4, S. 2.

"Either _to die the death_, or to abjure For ever the society of men."

--_Midsummer Night's Dream_, A. 1, S. 1.

"Or else he must not only _die the death_, But thy unkindness shall his death draw out To lingering sufferance."

--_Measure for Measure_, A. 2, S. 4.

See Dr Johnson and Mr Steevens's notes on the two latter pa.s.sages.

"Wert thou my bosom-love, _thou dyst the death_; Best ease for madness is the loss of breath."

--Machin's _Dumb Knight_, A. 2.

290. Stir. Glossary to Mandevile's _Voyage_, 1725. It is a very common form.

291. Acknowledge.

292. Original has _trade_.

293. Chaucer, in his "Canterbury Tales," l. 509, describing the Parson, says--

"He set not his benefice to hire, And laft his sheep _accombred_ in the mire," &c.

Dr Morrell spells the word _acc.u.mbrit_, and explains it in this manner-- "_Acc.u.mbrit_ may be interpreted _to wallow, to lie down_, qu.

_acc.u.mbere_." But Chaucer sometimes uses it in another sense--

"That they were _acombrit_ in their own distreyt."

--_Merchant's Second Tale_, 2910.

_i.e_., They were enc.u.mbered, brought into great straights.

A vet. Gall. _Combre_ or _Comble_.

"Trough wine and women there was both _accombred_."

--Pierce Plowman's _Vision_.

None of these explanations exactly agrees with the text. Bishop Bale certainly means, agreeably to the pa.s.sage in the Bible to which he alludes, _to destroy_ or _overwhelm_.

294. _Achab_ in original, and Latimer in his First Sermon before King Edward VI., calls him _Hachab_.

295. In the former edition this and the next five lines were given to _Pater Coelestis_.

296. Dip.

297. i.e., Asketh, inquireth. So, in Henryson's "Testament of Creside"--

"Quha had bene thair, and lyking for to heir His facound toung and termis exquisite, Of Rhetorick the prettick he micht leir, In breif sermone are pregnant sentence wryte, Befoir Cupide veiling his cap alyte, Speiris the caus of that vocatioun?

And he anone schew his intentioun."

--_Laing's Edit_., 1865, p. 84.

Again, Douglas's "Virgil," B. iii. p. 72--

"The seik ground deny is frute and fudis, My fader exhortis us turn againe our studis To Delos, and Apollois ansure _spere_, Be seiking him of succours us to lere."

Again, B. v. p. 140--

"Ane uthir mache to him was socht and _sperit_."

298. The colophon is: Thus endeth thys Tragedy or enterlude, manyfestynge the chefe promyses of G.o.d unto Man by all ages in the olde lawe, from the fall of Adam to the incarnacyon of the Lorde Jesus Christ. Compyled by Johan Bayle, Anno Domini 1538.

299. Wood, in his "Athenae Oxonienses," vol. 1, p. 149, positively fixes his birth at this place. Other writers have made him a native of North Mims in Hertfordshire, but apparently without any authority. [See Warton's "H.E.P.," edit. 1871, i. 80.] Bale, who lived nearest to the author's time, calls him _Civis Londinensis_; which words, though they do not absolutely prove that he was born in London, yet surely are sufficient in a matter of this uncertainty to warrant any one to conclude that he was a native of that city, as no circ.u.mstance appears to induce a belief that he acquired the t.i.tle of Citizen of London otherwise than by birth.

300. Peacham's "Compleat Gentleman," 4to, 1627, p. 95.

301. Gabriel Harvey's "MS. Note to Speght's Chaucer," as quoted in Mr Steevens's "Shakspeare," vol. 5.

302. T. b.a.s.t.a.r.d, in his "Chrestoleros, Seven Bookes of Epigrams," 1598, has the following, addressed _Ad Johannem Dauis_, in which he speaks of Heywood and his reputation in this department--

"Yf witt may make a Poet, as I gesse, _Heywood_ with auncient Poets may I compare.

But thou in word and deed hast made him lesse In his owne witt, hauing yet learning spare The goate doth hunt the gra.s.se, the wolfe the goat The lyon hunts the wolfe by proofe we see; _Heywood_ sang others downe, but thy sweete note, Dauis, hath sang him downe, and I would thee.

Then be not mou'de, nor count it such a sinn, To will in thee what thou hast done in him."

The subsequent _Ad Lectorem_ is to the same effect--

"Reader, if Heywood liued now againe, Whome time of life, hath not of praise bereaued; If he would write, I could expresse his vaine: Thus would he write, or else I am deceiued."

Sir J. Harington quotes one of Heywood's Epigrams in the Notes to B. 38 of his Translation of "Orlando Furioso;" and Thomas Wilson, in his "Rhetorique," 1553, speaks of Heywood's "Proverbs," adding that his "paynes in that behalfe are worthye of immortall prayse." In Barnaby Googe's "Husbandry," "our English Martiall, John Heywood," is quoted regarding Ess.e.x Cheese. It would not be difficult to add several other authors who quote or applaud him.--_Collier_.

303. "Athen. Oxon.," vol. 1, p. 149.

304. "But to step backe to my teske (though everie place I step to, yeeldes me sweeter discourse) what thinke you by Haywood, that scaped hanging with his mirth; the king being graciously and (as I thinke) truly perswaded, that a man that wrate so pleasant and harmlesse verses, could not have any harm full conceit against his proceedings, and so by the honest motion of a gentleman of his chamber saved him from the jerke of the six-string'd whip." (Harington's "Metamorphosis of Ajax," 1596, p.

25).

305. "Athen. Oxon.," vol. 1, p. 149.

306. The subsequent anecdote is given by Puttenham in his "Arte of English Poesie," 1589, p. 230:--

"The like hapned on a time at the Duke of Northumberlandes bourd, where merry _John Heywood_ was allowed to sit at the tables end. The Duke had a very n.o.ble and honorable mynde alwayes to pay his debts well, and when he lacked money would not stick to sell the greatest part of his plate; so had he done few dayes before. Heywood being loth to call for his drinke so oft as he was dry, turned his eye toward the cupbord and sayd, 'I finde great misse of your graces standing cups.' The Duke thinking he had spoken it of some knowledge that his plate was lately sold, said somewhat sharply, 'Why, sir, will not those cuppes serve as good a man as your selfe?' Heywood readily replied, 'Yes, if it please your grace; but I would haue one of them stand still at myne elbow, full of drinke, that I might not be driven to trouble your men so often to call for it.' This pleasant and speedy reuers of the former wordes holpe all the matter againe, whereupon the Duke became very pleasaunt, and dranke a bolle of wine to Heywood, and bid a cup should alwayes be standing by him."

This story, in itself of very little worth, serves to show the sort of terms Heywood was upon with the n.o.bility of his time.--_Collier_.

307. The editor of the last edition of the "Biographical Dictionary"

a.s.serts, but without citing his particular authority for the fact, that "after many peregrinations, he died at Naples, January the 9th, 1598."-- _Collier_.