[Footnote 1: There was a notable performance of Venice Preserv’d at Drury Lane, 19 November, 1721, which is perhaps the occasion referred to; but, as Genest says, after the original performances the role of Aquilina is not to be found in the play bills. 2 December, 1721, Spiller acted Antonio at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.]
In 1684 Mrs. Currer created Mrs. Featly In Ravenscroft’s ‘recantation play’, Dame Dobson; she was also Sylvia in Otway’s last comedy, The Atheist, and Lady Medlar in The Factious Citizen. In 1685 she played Isabella in Tate’s farcical A Duke and no Duke, and five years later she is billed as the roystering Widow Ranter in Mrs. Behn’s posthumous comedy of the same name. Her name does not appear after 1690, latterly her appearances were few, and she seems to have been one of those ‘crept the stage by love’. An unprinted MS. Satire on the Players (1682-3) has a sharp reference to Betty Currer and cries:—
Currer ‘tis time thou wert to Ireland gone
Thy utmost Rate is here but Half-a-Crown
Ask Turner if thou art not fulsome grown.
p. 309 Silvio, Page to Laura Lucretia. (Dramatis Personae.) I have added ‘Silvio’ to the list of actors as he enters according to the stage directions, Act i, 1, and elsewhere. Julio in the same scene refers to him, and Laura Lucretia several times addresses him during the play. Act ii, 1, &c. In Act v, however, he is manifestly confused with Sabina. Laura gives Silvio certain instructions, he approaches Galliard, and his lines have speech-prefix ‘Sab.’ In the following scene the direction is ’.nter Silvio’ and his speech is given to Sabina, Laura moreover addressing him as Sabina. I have no doubt that this confusion existed in Mrs. Behn’s MS.
p. 315 Medices Villa. The Villa Medici was erected in 1540 by Annibale Lippi. The gardens are famous for their beauty. From the avenue of evergreen-oaks with a fountain before the Villa can be obtained a celebrated view of St. Peter’s.
p. 317 I may chance to turn her. Mr. Tickletext was much of the opinion of the celebrated casuist Bauny, who, in his Theologia Moralis, tractatus iv, De Poenitentia, quaestio 14, writes: ‘Licitum est cuilibet lupanar ingredi ad odium peccati ingerendum meretricibus, etsi metus sit, et vero etiam verisimilitudo non parva se peccaturum eo quod malo suo saepe sit expertus, blandis se muliercularum sermonibus flecci solitum ad libidinem.’
p. 319 Amorous Twire. Twire—a sly, saucy glance; a leer. cf. Etheridge’s The Man of Mode (1676), Act iii, III, Harriet. ‘I abominate … the affected smiles, the silly By-words, and amorous Tweers in passing.’ The verb ‘to twire’ occurs in Shakespeare’s Sonnets, xxviii, 12, and frequently elsewhere.
p. 320 Hogan-Mogan. A popular corruption, or rather perversion, of the Dutch Hoogmogend-heiden, ‘High Mightinesses’, the title of the States-General. In a transferred manner it is used as a humorous or Contemptuous adjective of those affecting grandeur and show; ‘high and mighty.’ The phrase is common. Needham, Mercurius Pragmaticus, No. 7 (1648), speaks of the ‘Hogan Mogan States of Westminster’. Tom Brown (1704), Works (1760), Vol. IV, lashes ‘hogan-mogan generals’.
p. 330 Pusilage. French pucelage; virginity; maidenhead. 1724 reading ’.upilage’ misses the whole point and comes near making nonsense of the passage. cf. Otway’s The Poets Complaint of his Muse (4to, 1680), v-vi:
No pair so happy as my Muse and I.
Ne’er was young lover half so fond,
When first his pusilage he lost;
Or could of half my pleasure boast.
p. 322 Back-Sword. A sword with a cutting edge; or single-stick (with a basket hilt).
p. 322 Parades. ‘The lessons defensive are commonly called the parades’.—Sir W. Hope’s Compleat Fencing Master (2nd edition, 1692).
p. 322 Degagements. André Wernesson, Sieur de Liancour, in chap. v of Le Maistre d’ Armes (1686), treats ‘des Dégagements’ in some detail. Hope defines ‘Caveating or Dis-engaging’ as ‘the slipping of your Adversaries’ sword when it is going to bind or secure yours’.
p. 322 Advancements. Advancings. ‘A man is said to Approach or Advance when being out of his adversaries’ reach or at a pretty distance from him he cometh nearer to him’.—Hope, Compleat Fencing Master.
p. 322 Eloynements. To elonge ‘is to Streatch forward one’s right Arm and Legg and to keep a close left Foot. This a Man doth when he giveth a Thrust, and when he doth it he is said to make an Elogne’ (Eloynements).—Hope, New Method of Fencing, chap. iv, XI (2nd edition, 1714), deals in detail with ‘Elonging, or making an Elonge’.
p. 322 Retierments. Retreats or Retirings are very fully described in Liancour’s Le Maistre d’ Armes, chap. iv. ‘A Man is said to Retire when being within his Adversaries’ reach he goeth out of it either by stepping or jumping backwards from his Adversary upon a Straight Line’.—Hope, Compleat Fencing Master (2nd edition, 1692).
p. 322 St. George’s Guard. ‘A guard of the broadsword or sabre used in warding off blows directed against the head’.—C. James, Military Dictionary (1802).
p. 322 Flurette. or Fluret. A fencing foil. Hope, New Method of Fencing (1714), chap, vii says: ‘[The Fencing-Master] ought to … begin his Scholars with Fleurets’.
p. 323 Ajax and Ulysses contending for Achilles his armour?
Bella mouet clypeus: deque armis anna feruntur.
Non ea Tydides, non audet Oïleos Aiax,
Non minor Atrides, non bello maior et aeuo
Poscere non alii: soli Telamone creato
Läertaque fuit tantae fiducia laudis.—Ovid: Metamorphoscon.
xii, 621-5. Book xiii commences with a description of the contest of Ajax (Telamonis) and Ulysses for the arms of the dead Achilles. They were awarded to the prince of Ithaca.
p. 324 Clouterlest. Clumsiest. E. Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum, speaks of Spenser’s ‘rough hewn clouterly verses’. cf. Pamela, Vol. I, p. 112 (1741), ‘some clouterly ploughboy’.
p. 338 Rosemary. ‘There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance’. Hamlet, iv, v.
p. 340 Docity. Gumption. A favourite word with Mrs. Behn. cf. The False Count, ii, 11. Guill. ‘I thank heaven I have docity’, and elsewhere,
p. 341 Julio. Guilio, a silver coin worth 6_d_. It was first struck by Pope Julius II (1503-13), hence its name.
p. 346 The hour of the Berjere. L’heure du berger ou l’amant trouve celle qu’il aime favorable à ses voeux. cf. La Fontaine, Contes. La Coupe Enchantée. ‘Il y fait bon, l’heure du berger sonne.’ It is a favourite expression of Mrs. Behn. cf. Sir Patient Fancy, Act i, l. ’.rom Ten to Twelve are the happy hours of the Bergere, those of intire enjoyment.’ Also the charming conclusion of The Lover s Watch:—
Damon, my watch is just and new:
And all a Lover ought to do,
My Cupid faithfully will show.
And ev’ry hour he renders there
Except l’heure du Bergère.
p. 352 Knox, or Cartwright. The allusion here is to the Scotch reformer and the Puritan divine, whose weighty tomes Tickletext might be supposed to carry with him for propagandist purposes. Fillamour has already rallied him on his Spartan orthodoxy, and anon we find the worthy chaplain hot at the ‘great work of conversion’. It has been ingeniously suggested that a reference is intended to The Preacher’s Travels of John Cartwright of Magdalen, Oxford, a book first published in 1611, and afterwards reprinted.
p. 353 St. James’s of the Incurables. The church of S. Giacomo and the adjacent Ospedale stand at the corner of the Via S. Giacomo, which leads from the Corso towards the river.
p. 378 cogging. To cog is to trick, to cheat. A word in common use.
p. 384 like to like…. A very old proverbial saying. The humours of Grim the collier are introduced by Ulpian Fulwell into his morality, Like Will to Like (1561). cf. The amusing anonymous comedy, Grim, the Collier of Croydon (1600), with its major plot of the Belphegor story.
p. 384 smoke. To detect. cf. All’s Well That Ends Well, iii, 6. ‘He was first smoked by the old lord Lafeu.’
END OF VOL. II
End of Project Gutenberg’s The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II, by Aphra Behn