A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Ix Part 124

[156] [This must allude to some real circ.u.mstance and person.]

[157] [Attend.]

[158] [Bergen-op-Zoom.]

[159] [Old copy, _our_.]

[160] [Lap, long. See Nares, edit. 1859, _v. Lave-eared_.]

[161] [Old copy, _seas_.]

[162] [Orcus.]

[163] [Worried.]

[164] [An answer to a summons or writ. Old copy, _retourner_.]

[165] [This most rare edition was very kindly lent to me by the Rev.

J.W. Ebsworth, Moldash Vicarage, near Ashford.]

[166] [Cromwell did not die till September 3, 1658, a sufficient reason for the absence of the allusion which Reed thought singular.]

[167] [i.e., The human body and mind. _Microcosmus_ had been used by Davies of Hereford in the same sense in the t.i.tle of a tract printed in 1603, as it was afterwards by Heylin in his "Microcosmus," 1621, and by Earle in his "Microcosmography," 1628.]

[168] _Skene_ or _skane: gladius, Ensis brevior.--Skinner_. Dekker's "Belman's Night Walk," sig. F 2: "The b.l.o.o.d.y Tragedies of all these are onely acted by the women, who, carrying long knives or _skeanes_ under their mantles, doe thus play their parts." Again in Warner's "Albion's England," 1602, p. 129--

"And Ganimaedes we are," quoth one, "and thou a prophet trew: And hidden _skeines_ from underneath their forged garments drew, Wherewith the tyrant and his bawds with safe escape they slew."

--See the notes of Mr Steevens and Mr Nichols on "Romeo and Juliet," act ii. sc. 4.

[169] The edition of 1657 reads, _red buskins drawn with white ribband.

--Collier_.

[170] Musical terms. See notes on "Midsummer's Night's Dream," vol. iii.

p. 63, and "King Richard III." vol. vii. p. 6, edit. 1778.--_Steevens_.

[171] A metaphor drawn from music, more particularly that kind of composition called a _Ground_, with its _Divisions_. Instead of _relish_, I would propose to read _flourish_.--_S.P_.

[172] Mr Steevens supposes this to be a musical term. See note on "Richard II." act ii. sc. 1--

"The setting sun and music at the close."

[173] Fr. for whistlings.--_Steevens_.

[174] i.e., Pet.i.tionary.--_Steevens_.

[175] [Altered by Mr Collier to _girls_; but _gulls_ is the reading of 1607.]

[176] _Like an ordinary page, gloves, hamper_--so the first edition; but as the two last words seem only the prompter's memoranda, they are omitted. They are also found in the last edition.--_Collier_.

[177] Ready.

[178] Graceful. See Mr Malone's note on "Coriola.n.u.s," act ii. sc. 1.

[179] [Edits., _blasting_.] I would propose to read the _blushing childhood_, alluding to the ruddiness of Aurora, the _rosy morn_, as in act iii. sc. 6--

"Light, the fair grandchild to the glorious sun, Opening the cas.e.m.e.nts of the _rosy morn_," &c.

--_S. Pegge_.

[180] So in "Hamlet," act i. sc. 1--

"But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, _Walks_ o'er the dew of _yon high eastern hill_."

[181] A _fool's bauble_, in its _literal_ meaning, is the carved truncheon which the licensed fools or jesters anciently carried in their hands. See notes on "All's Well that Ends Well," act iv. sc. 5.

--_Steevens_.

[182] Winstanley has a.s.serted that Oliver Cromwell performed the part of Tactus at Cambridge: and some who have written the life of that great man have fixed upon this speech as what first gave him ideas of sovereignty. The notion is too vague to be depended upon, and too ridiculous either to establish or refute. It may, however, not be unnecessary to mention that Cromwell was born in 1599, and the first edition of this play [was printed in 1607, and the play itself written much earlier]. If, therefore, the Protector ever did represent this character, it is more probable to have been at Huntingdon School.

[183] [Old copies, _scarve_, and so the edit. of 1780. Mr Collier subst.i.tuted _change_ as the reading of the old copies, which it is not.

See Mr Brae's paper read before the Royal Society of Literature, Jan.

1871, 8vo edit. 1873, p. 23, et seq.]

[184] Edits., _deeds_. Pegge thought that by _deeds_ was intended Tactus himself; but it is hard to say how this could be made out, as Tactus cannot be translated _deeds_, though Auditus might be rendered by metonymy _ears_.

[185] [Edit., _fear'd_.]

[186] In Surphlet's "Discourses on the Diseases of Melancholy," 4to, 1599, p. 102, the case alluded to is set down: "There was also of late a great lord, _which thought himselfe to be a gla.s.se_, and had not his imagination troubled, otherwise then in this onely thing, for he could speake mervailouslie well of any other thing: he used commonly to sit, and tooke great delight that his friends should come and see him, but so as that he would desire them, that they would not come neere unto him."

[187] Hitherto misprinted _conclaves_.--_Collier_. [First 4to, correctly, _concaves_.]

[188] See Surphlet, p. 102.

[189] [An allusion to the myth of the werewolf.]

[190] [This proverb is cited by Heywood. See Hazlitt's "Proverbs," 1869, p. 392.]

[191] [All the editions except 1657, _bidden_, and all have _arms_ for _harms_.]

[192] Presently, forthwith.

[193] [Edits., _wax_.]

[194] Some of the old copies [including that of 1607] read--

"Here lies the sense that _lying_ gull'd them all."

--_Collier_.