A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 13

[323] [Old copy, meant.]

[324] Thus Armado, in "Love's Labour's Lost," edit. 1778, vol. ii. p. 394: "I do excel Samson in my rapier as much as he did me in carrying gates."—Steevens.

[325] [Edits., Have you ... drawn; but the speaker evidently does not intend to ask the boy whether he has drawn the register.]

[326] The Romans bestowed an oaken wreath on him who had preserved the life of a citizen. The mother of Coriolanus, in Shakespeare, boasts that he "returned, his brows bound with oak."—Steevens.

[327] A coin of the least value of any current in Venice; it was worth no more than half a sol, that is, near a farthing. See Coriat's "Crudities," 1611, p. 286.

[328] This expression puts one in mind of Bacon's description of Revenge, when he says that it is "wild justice." A Bravo is a revenger of injuries, and may therefore very fitly be called a lawless justicer.—Collier.

[329] See note to "The Parson's Wedding," post.

[330] The romance by Sir Philip Sydney.

[331] i.e., Had a taste of, Delibo, Lat. So Claudian. B. Get. 351, "Contentus delibasse cibos."—Steevens.

[332] [A French romance by Honorè d'Urfè, which had been translated into English in 1620. It was formerly very popular. Another translation was made in 1657-8, 3 vols. folio.]

[333] [Hippocrene.] So Persius: "Fonte labra prolui Caballino."—Steevens.

[334] So Persius: "Pallidamque Pyrenen."—Steevens.

[335] [He probably distributes among them some of his MSS. verses.]

[336] "That your hairs were golden threads," is the true reading; but Mr Reed allowed it to stand, "that your hearts were golden threads," which is nonsense, or very near it. Shakespeare has the same expression in his "Rape of Lucrece"—

"Her hair, like golden threads, play'd with her breath."

—Collier.

[337] i.e., Go before. So in the 119th Psalm: "Mine eyes prevent the night watches."—Steevens.

Again, in the office of consecrating Cramp Rings: "We beseech thee, O Lord, that the Spirit which proceeds from thee may prevent and follow in our desires," &c.—Reed.

One of the Collects of the Church Service begins, "Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings."—Collier.

[338] Alluding to the ancient aphorism, Ingratus si dixeris, omnia dixeris.

[339] [Possibly the author had in his recollection Wimbeldon's "Godlie Sermon," preached at Paul's Cross in 1388, and "found out hyd in a wall;" printed in 1584.]

[340] This is borrowed from the character of an Antiquary, in [Earle's] "Micro-Cosmographie, or a Piece of the World Discovered," 12^o, 1628: "Printed books he contemnes as a novelty of this latter age; but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly, especially if the cover be all moth-eaten, and the dust make a parenthesis between every syllable."

[341] [The antiquary was fortunate in the possession of what is still unknown in a complete state. Fragments, recovered from a palimpsest, have been printed by Cardinal Mai.]

[342] [Old copy, Girmanus.]

[343] A gazet, says Coriat (p. 286), "is almost a penny; whereof ten doe make a liver, that is, nine pence." Newspapers being originally sold for that piece of money, acquired their present name of Gazettes.—See Junius "Etymol." voce Gazette.

[344] The manner of dating letters from abroad, before the alteration of the calendar, according to the reformation of it by Pope Gregory XIII. In "The Woman's Prize; or, the Tamer Tam'd," by Beaumont and Fletcher [Dyce's edit. vii. 194], Maria says to Petruchio, who had threatened to travel, in order to be rid of her—

—[Act. iv. sc. 5.]