A Select Collection of Old English Plays Volume Xi Part 74

"Gallants, men and women, And of all sorts tag rag, been seen to flock here In threaves these ten weeks as to a _second Hogsden_ In days of _Pimlico_ and Eye-bright."

--[Gifford's edit., 1816, v. 164.]

Pimlico, near Westminster, was formerly resorted to on the same account as the former at Hoxton.

[191] Derby ale has ever been celebrated for its excellence. Camden, speaking of the town of Derby, observes that "its present reputation is for the a.s.sizes for the county, which are held here, and from the _excellent ale brewed in it_." In 1698 Ned Ward published a poem ent.i.tled, "Sots' Paradise, or the Humours of a Derby Alehouse; with a Satire upon Ale."

[192] _i.e._, Pleases me. See note to "Cornelia" [v. 188.]

[193] Henslowe, in his Diary, mentions a play [by Martin Slaughter]

called "Alexander and Lodwicke," under date of 14th Jan. 1597, and in Evans's "Collection of Old Ballads," 1810, there is a ballad with the same t.i.tle, and no doubt upon the same story.--_Collier._ [It is the same tale as "Amis and Amiloun." See Hazlitt's "Shakespeare's Library," 1875, introd. to "Pericles."]

[194] So in "King Richard III."--

"Thou troublest me: I am not in the vein."

--_Steevens._

[195] [Compare pp. 230-1.]

[196] [Compare p. 206.]

[197] [Compare p 206.]

[198] [The author had a well-known pa.s.sage in Shakespeare in his recollection when he wrote this. The edits, read--

"His h.e.l.l, his habitation; nor has he Any other local place."]

[199] [Edits., _men_.]

[200] [_i.e._, The pox.]

[201] Reed observes: "A parody on a line from 'The Spanish Tragedy'--

"'O eyes! no eyes; but fountains fraught with tears,'"

on which Mr Collier writes: "If a parody be intended, it is not a very close one. The probability is, that the line is quoted by Rash from some popular poem of the day."

It would be just as reasonable to call the following opening of a sonnet by Sir P. Sidney a parody upon a line in the "Spanish Tragedy"--

"O tears! no tears; but rain from beauty's skies."

In fact, it was a common mode of expression at the time. Thus in "Alb.u.mazar," we have this exclamation--

"O lips! no lips; but leaves besmeared with dew."

[202] See note to "Cornelia," [_v._ 225.]

[203] These lines are taken from Marlowe's "Hero and Leander," 4 1600, sig. B 3, [or Dyce's Marlowe, iii. 15.]

[204] Again, in "Cynthia's Revels," act v. sc. 3: "From _stabbing of arms_, flapdragons, healths, whiffs, and all such swaggering humours, good Mercury defend us," [edit. 1816, ii. 380.

This custom continued long after the writing of this play. The writer of "The Character of England" [Evelyn], 1659, p. 37, speaking of the excessive drinking then in use, adds, "Several encounters confirmed me that they were but too frequent, and that there was a sort of perfect debauchees, who style themselves Hectors; that, in their mad and unheard-of revels, _pierce their own veins, to quaff their own blood_, which some of them have drunk to that excess that they have died of the intemperance."--_Reed._

[205] Alluding to the story of Friar Bacon's brazen head.--_Collier._

[206] The colour of servants' clothes.

[207] ["This is a most spirited and clever scene, and would act capitally."--_MS. note in one of the former edits._]

[208] [Edits., _are_.]

[209] [Edits., _and_.]

[210] A Jack o' Lent was a puppet which was thrown at in _Lent_, like Shrovetide c.o.c.ks. See Mr Steevens's notes on "The Merry Wives of Windsor," act iii. sc. 3, and act v. sc. 5.

[211] The whole of this scene seems levelled at Coriat.--_Gilchrist._

[212] Opportunely.--_Steevens._

[213] Meeting. So in "Hamlet," act iii. sc. 1--

"That he, as 'twere by accident, may here _Affront_ Ophelia."

[214] An allusion, probably, to some old ballad. "Hamlet," act iii.

sc. 2, refers to the same, and appears to repeat the identical line, which is also introduced in "Love's Labour's Lost," act iii. sc. 1.

Bishop Warburton observes that "amongst the country May-games there was an hobby-horse which, when the puritanical humour of those times opposed and discredited these games, was brought by the poets and ballad-makers, as an instance of the ridiculous zeal of the sectaries"

(Note to "Hamlet.") See also Mr Steevens's note on the same pa.s.sage.

Again, in Ma.s.singer's "Very Woman," act iii. sc. 1--

"How like an everlasting Morris dance it looks; Nothing but _hobby-horse_ and Maid Marian."

The _hobby-horse_ was also introduced into the Christmas diversions, as well as the May-games. In "A True Relation of the Faction begun at Wisb.i.+.c.h, by Fa. Edmonds, alias Weston, a Jesuite," 1595, &c., 4, 1601, p. 7, is the following pa.s.sage: "He lifted up his countenance, as if a new spirit had bin put into him, and tooke upon him to controll and finde fault with this and that (_as the comming into the hall of a hobby-horse in Christmas_), affirming that he would no longer tolerate these and those so grosse abuses, but would have them reformed."

Whatever the allusion in the text be, the same is also probably made in Drue's "Dutchess of Suffolk," 1631--

"CLUNIE. Answer me, _hobbihorse;_ Which way cross'd he you saw now?

JENKIN. Who do you speake to, sir?

_We have forgot the hobbihorse_."

--Sig. C 4.--_Gilchrist._

[215] See Dyce's Middleton, ii. 169.

[216] This line very strongly resembles another in "The Merchant of Venice:"

"You spend but time, _To wind about_ my love with _circ.u.mstance_."