The Works of Aphra Behn Volume Iii Part 147

Que les plumets seraient aimables Si leurs feux etaient plus constants!

p. 401 _Cannons_. Canons were the immense and exaggerated breeches, adorned with ribbons and richest lace, which were worn by the fops of the court of Louis XIV. There is more than one reference to them in Moliere. Ozell, in his translation of Moliere (1714), writes 'cannions'.

cf. _School for Husbands_, Vol. II, p. 32: 'those great cannions wherein the legs look as tho' they were in the stocks.'

Ces grands cannons ou, comme en des entraves, On met tous les matins ses deux jambes esclaves.

--_Ecole des Maris_, i, I.

cf. Pepys, 24 May, 1660: 'Up, and made myself as fine as I could, with the linen stockings on and wide canons that I bought the other day at Hague.'

p. 403 _The Count of Gabalis_. The Abbe Montfaucon de Villars (1635-73) had wittily satirized the philosophy of Paracelsus and the Rosicrucians and their belief in sylphs and elemental spirits in his _Le Comte de Gabalis ou Entretiens sur les sciences secretes_ (Paris, 1670), which was 'done into English by P.A. _Gent_.' (P. Ayres), as _Count Gabalis, or the Extravagant Mysteries of the Cabalists, exposed in five pleasant discourses_ (1680), and thus included in Vol. II of Bentley and Magnes, _Modern Novels_ (1681-93), twelve volumes. It will be remembered that Pope was indebted to a hint from _Gabalis_ for his aerial machinery in _The Rape of the Lock_.

p. 406 _Iredonozar_. This name is from Gonsales' (Bishop G.o.dwin) _The Man in the Moone_: 'The first ancestor of this great monarch [the Emperor of the Moon] came out of the earth ... and his name being Irdonozur, his heirs, unto this day, do all a.s.sume unto themselves that name.'

p. 407 _Harlequin comes out on the Stage_. This comic scene, _Du Desespoir_, which affords such opportunity for the mime, although not given in the first edition of Le _Theatre Italien_, finds a place in the best edition (1721). The editor has appended the following note: 'Ceux qui ont vu cette Scene, conviendront que c'est une des plus plaisantes qu'on ait jamais jouee sur le _Theatre Italien_.'

p. 408 _a Man that laugh'd to death_. This is the traditional end of l'unico Aretino. On hearing some ribald jest he is said to have flung himself back in a chair and expired of sheer merriment. Later days elucidate his fate by declaring that overbalancing himself he broke his neck on the marble pavement. Sir Thomas Urquhart, the glorious translator of Rabelais, is reported to have died of laughter on hearing of the Restoration of Charles II.

p. 410 _Boremes_. A corrupt form (perhaps only in these pa.s.sages) of bouts-rimes. 'They were a List of Words that rhyme to one another drawn up by another Hand and given to a Poet, who was to make a Poem to the Rhymes in the same Order that they were placed on the List.'

--Addison, _Spectator_, No. 60 (1711).

p. 413 _Flute Doux_. Should be flute-douce. 'The highest pitched variety of the old flute with a mouthpiece.'--Murray, _N.E.D_. cf. Etheredge, _The Man of Mode_ (1676), ii, II: 'Nothing but flute doux and French hoyboys.'

p. 420 _a Curtain or Hangings_. When several scenes had to be set one behind another the device of using a curtain or tapestries was common.

cf. Dryden and Lee's _The Duke of Guise_ (1682), Act v, where after four or five sets 'the scene draws, behind it a traverse'. We then have the Duke's a.s.sa.s.sination--he shrieks out some four lines and dies, whereon 'the traverse is drawn'. The traverse was merely a pair of curtains on a rod. All the grooves were in use for the scenes already set.

p. 422 _Harpsicals_. A common corruption of harpsicords on the a.n.a.logy of virginals. The two 4tos, 1687 and 1688, and the 1711 edition all read 'harpsicals'. 1724 gives 'Harpsicords'.

p. 435 _Ebula_. The Ebelus was a jewel of great price bestowed upon Gonzales by Irdonozur. He tells us that: 'to say nothing of the colour (the Lunar whereof I made mention before, which notwithstanding is so incredibly beautiful, as a man should travel 1000 Leagues to behold it), the shape is somewhat flat of the breadth of a _Pistolett_, and twice the thickness. The one side of this, which is somewhat more Orient of Colour than the other, being clapt to the bare skin of a man, in any part of his body, it taketh away from it all weight or ponderousness; whereas turning the other side it addeth force unto the attractive beams of the Earth, either in this world or that, and maketh the body to weigh half so much again as it did before.'

p. 446 _Guzman of Salamanca_. A Guzman was a common term of abuse. The first English translation (by James Mabbe) of Aleman's famous romance is, indeed, ent.i.tled _The Rogue_, and it had as running t.i.tle _The Spanish Rogue_. There is a novel by George Fidge ent.i.tled _The English Gusman; or, The History of that Unparalleled Thief James Hind_ (1652, 4to). Salamanca had an unsavoury reputation owing to the fictions of t.i.tus Gates. cf. _The Rover_ (II), Act v: 'Guzman Medicines.'

p. 446 _Signum Mallis_. This curious phrase, which is both distorted cant and canine, would appear to mean 'your rogue's phiz'.

p. 446 _Friskin_. 'A gay lively person.'--Halliwell.

p. 446 _Jack of Lent_. A puppet set up to be thrown at; in modern parlance, 'Aunt Sally'. Hence a b.u.t.t for all.

p. 451 _Spitchc.o.c.k'd_. To spitchc.o.c.k is to split lengthwise, as an eel, and then broil.

p. 458 _Stentraphon_. A megaphone.

p. 460 _They fight at Barriers_. A comic combat between Harlequin and Scaramouch forms one of the traditional incidents (_Lazzi_), which occur repeatedly in the Italian and Franco-Italian farces. cf. Dryden's Epilogue spoken by Hart when _The Silent Woman_ was played before the University of Oxford in 1673:--

Th' _Italian_ Merry-Andrews took their place, And quite debauch'd the Stage with lewd Grimace: Instead of Wit and Humours, your Delight Was there to see two Hobby-horses fight, Stout _Scaramoucha_ with Rush Lance rode in, And ran a Tilt at Centaure _Arlequin_.