A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Viii Part 100

[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 cla.s.s. In the "Death of Robert Earl of Huntington," 1601, when Will Brand, a vulgar a.s.sa.s.sin, 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 a.s.similating 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 pa.s.sage, 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 trespa.s.se 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 t.i.tle-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 pa.s.sed 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.