A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Vi Part 111

[200] [The first 4 has _can_ for _should_, and _say_ for _'ssay_ or _essay_. The second 4 reads _lying_ for _living_.]

[201] [Old copy, _drudge_.]

[202] Edit. 1592 has _availeth_. See St Matthew xvi. 26.

[203] [A synonym for a drubbing.] See "All's Well that Ends Well," act iii. sc. 6, when this pa.s.sage is quoted in ill.u.s.tration of "John Drum's entertainment," as it is called by Shakespeare. The expression was equivalent to _drumming out_.

[204] Second 4 has _array_. Mr Collier thinks _beray_ was intended by the writer as a blunder on the part of the clown.

[205] First 4, _seeke_.

[206] [The clown is addressing one of the audience.]

[207] [Edit. 1584, _the_.]

[208] [This word is omitted in first 4.]

[209] [_I tell ye_, not in edit. 1592.]

[210] _Tell me what good ware for England you do lacke_, edit. 1592.

[211] According to "Extracts from the Stationers' Registers," i. 88, William Griffith was licensed in 1563-4 to print a ballad ent.i.tled "Buy, Broomes, buye." This maybe the song here sung by Conscience. A song to the tune is inserted in the tract of "Robin Goodfellow," 1628, 4, but no doubt first published many years earlier.

[212] [So both the 4s, but Mr Collier suggests _soften_.]

[213] _Play, and_ are not in the second 4to.

[214] [The writer seems here to have intended an allusion to Scogin, whose "Jests" were well-known at that time as a popular book.]

[215] [_I think_, omitted in second 4to.]

[216] A strong kind of cloth so called, and several times mentioned in Shakespeare. See "Henry IV." Part I., act i. sc. 2; "Comedy of Errors,"

act iv. se. 3, &c.--_Collier_.

[217] _The Venetians came nothing near the knee. Venetians_ were a kind of hose, or breeches, adopted from the fashions of Venice.

[218] [First 4to reads, _not agree_.]

[219] [A pun, probably, upon _alms_ and _arms_.]

[220] [Old copy, _tables_.]

[221] [So old copies; but the period named before was _three months_.]

[222] [Old copies, _seeme_.]

[223] See Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost," edit. Collier, ii. 306 and 360; Beaumont and Fletcher's "Monsieur Thomas," edit. Dyce, vii.

364. Thomas Nash, in his "Strange Newes," 1592, sig. D 3, uses _no point_ just in the same way, as a sort of emphatic double negative.--"No point; _ergo_, it were wisely done of goodman Boores son, if he should go to the warres," &c.

[224] [The worst wonder is.]

[225] [Compa.s.sionate.]

[226] [Not in first 4to.]

[227] The learned Constable refers, of course, to Love, who has already been on the stage in a vizard at the back of her head: see earlier; _Enter_ LUCRE, _and_ LOVE _with a vizard, behind_.

[228] [Old copies, _sacred_. This was Mr Collier's suggestion.]

[229] [Old copies, _ye_.]

[230] [Alluding to the "Three Ladies of London," 1584.]

[231] [Old copy, _Pompe hath_.]

[232] [Old copy, _place_.]

[233] [The bells attached to the falcon, the _impress of Pleasure_.]

[234] Referring to the chains of gold formerly worn by persons of rank and property.

[235] Alluding to the manner in which ballad-sellers of that day used to expose their goods, by hanging them up in the same way that the three lords had hung up their shields.

[236] [Foolish, maudlin.]

[237] [Except.]

[238] [See Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 265-6.]

[239] The best, and indeed what may be considered the only, account of Tarlton the actor precedes the edition of his Jests, reprinted for the Shakespeare Society in 1844.

[240] [Videlicet.]

[241] [Ignorant.]

[242] [Alluding to some wood engraving of Tarlton, which Simplicity had in his basket. To the reprint of "Tarlton's Jests," by the Shakespeare Society, are prefixed two wood-cuts, made from a drawing of the time of Elizabeth, and no doubt soon after the death of Tarlton of the plague in 1588.]

[243] [Preferment.]

[244] An e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, apparently equivalent to _G.o.d_.

[245] The first purchase made in the day--the ballad which Wit had bought of Simplicity.

[246] Espial. The word occurs again further on.

[247] [Probably a reference is intended to the proverbial expression about Mahomet and the mountain.]

[248] An ambry or aumbry is a pantry or closet. The next line explains the word.